


Bodies, Can't You See?

by sual



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Humor, Discussion of Abortion, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Omega Hux, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:57:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sual/pseuds/sual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hux sees the positive result on the pregnancy test scanner, he comes to several alarming realizations all at once. One: that his birth control has been tampered with. Two: that the baby is Kylo's. Three: that this is his true punishment for Starkiller's failure. </p><p>And quietly, in a weak, tiny voice in the back of his mind, the unsettling conclusion that he wants to keep it. He'll die before he lets anyone near his child. He'll tear apart anyone that tries to get in his way. </p><p>Even Kylo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel a little bad for starting another fic when I still have others left to finish, but this fandom always needs more Omega Hux! I've had parts of this floating around in my drafts forever, so, here goes the first chapter!
> 
> Named after the song "Cruel" by St. Vincent, specifically, _bodies, can't you see what everybody wants from you?_

When Hux sees the result on the pregnancy test scanner, screen innocuously blinking up at him with “positive, congratulations!” written across it, he comes to several alarming realizations all at once.

One: that his birth control has failed. It should have been impossible, he takes his pills with religious regularity, has done since his first heat at fourteen. Unless. Unless…

Two: his birth control has been tampered with. Another seeming impossibility, until he realizes that the only other person who has had access to his quarters lately is the same wretched man-child that last fucked him. The same ridiculous, black-clad, force-wielding alpha that answers only to the Supreme Leader. Snoke, whose bizarre punishment for the failure of Starkiller had not been torture or death or demotion, but the insistence that Hux come off his heat suppressants and be locked in a room with Kylo Ren for the duration of his next heat.

Three, horrifying: the baby is Kylo’s. He should never have let that idiot come inside him. Repeatedly. (No matter how wonderfully full it made him feel.)

Four, worse still: the heat was not Snoke’s punishment. This pregnancy is.

Five, with an alarming amount of clarity: the child growing inside him will be as ridiculously powerful a force user as the rest of the cursed line of Skywalkers. Snoke will want the baby, will undoubtedly be planning to turn it into some perfect Sith specimen, a well-balanced blend of the omega General’s intellect and cunning and the alpha master of the Knights of Ren’s raw power. The thought of being used as a breeding vessel makes his stomach churn. The thought that Snoke may want him to do this more than once, may want an entire brood of mini Kylos running about the First Order, makes him actually throw up.

Six, belated: oh. Morning sickness. That’s why he’s been throwing up daily, lately.

Seven, entirely irrelevant: Kylo Ren would be an awful father. Hux can admit to himself that the alpha was terribly exciting to have in bed, scent dangerous and sex rough, just as he liked it, but that temper would hardly do for raising a child. Hux is not at all convinced that Ren isn’t still a child himself, mentally speaking.

Eight: he needs to terminate this pregnancy, cannot allow this to happen to him. Cannot bring a child into the world Snoke has planned for it.

Hux looks up at his pale, ashen face in the mirror of his private refresher, and quietly, miserably, in the back of his mind, hears a tiny voice that sounds like his own but smaller, weaker, come to its own unsettling conclusion.

(Nine: he wants to keep it. He’ll die before he lets anyone near his child.) 

 

*

 

Three months after the destruction of Starkiller, two months after Kylo Ren leaves the Finalizer to join Snoke in his citadel to complete his training, General Hux of the First Order vanishes without a trace. The first assumption of the remaining officers on board is that Snoke has finally had Hux killed for his failure on Starkiller, so they file dutifully into the ship’s holochamber to find out who will be taking the omega’s place.

They feel Snoke’s fury suffocating them all the way from the other side of the galaxy.

The Supreme Leader leaves the alphas that make up most of the commanding staff to squabble for leadership amongst themselves, ordering only that the First Order turns its entire focus to finding and bringing Hux back alive and unharmed. He gives no further details. (The rumour mill goes wild.)

Security footage tracks Hux’s last known movements; the day before he disappeared, he had done nothing out of the ordinary, following his schedule to the letter as ever. They watch the footage of him nod goodnight to Captain Phasma as he retires to his quarters. There is no footage of him leaving them. Nor is anything missing from his private chambers, his selection of personal items still exactly where he’d left them. His comm. unit sits beeping on his bedside table with thousands of unread messages, his datapad strewn carelessly onto the bed. Every article of clothing in his inventory is accounted for, his clothes for the next day laid out neatly on his desk, his cap sitting on top of them. They find his tracker attached to his belt there, as is standard.

There are no missing ships, no suspicious manifests, no deviation of the transports from their usual destinations and routines. Every escape pod is as it should be. But still Hux is nowhere to be found on board, either – every vent, crawlspace and tunnel big enough for a child to fit through on the Finalizer is turned inside out, all empty. An unfortunate squadron of stormtroopers is even sent to sift through the waste disposal units.

(Nobody notices the crushed remains of a pregnancy test kit among the filth.)

Reluctantly, the First Order starts to accept that a galaxy wide search is becoming inevitable, and places a bounty on Hux’s head.

  

*

 

Hux has been hiding in a crate in a First Order freighter for the better part of a day now.

No sooner than he’d read the results of his pregnancy test had he artfully arranged his quarters into normalcy, pulled out his single set of civilian clothes that he kept hidden in the back of his closet for emergencies, packed half of the contents of his mini-fridge into a bag along with a few other essentials that wouldn’t be noticed, and dragged himself inch by inch through the ventilation shafts down to the hangar bay, throwing the test kit down a garbage chute as he went. One of their cargo ships was heading towards Tatooine at 1100 hours; it seemed as good a place to disappear as any.

Half of the crates on board were mercifully empty, waiting to be filled with munitions from the desert planet, and it had been easy enough to slip on board unnoticed and lock himself inside. Hux estimates that it will be at least another day before the officers left on the Finalizer get their act together enough to realize that he’s gone and inform Snoke.

His theory proves correct when they touch down in Mos Eisley, the stormtroopers opening up the freighter’s loading ramp when they land with hardly a glance for the contents of the holding bay. With stealth long instilled in him from his Academy days, Hux slips easily from the ship and takes the only item other than food he’d brought with him out of his bag – an old cloak Kylo Ren had left on board – and wraps himself in it. It still smells like the alpha, even now. He hopes it will be enough to disguise the scent of unbonded, pregnant omega that he must surely start broadcasting soon.

Mos Eisley is, as expected, a shithole. The twin suns beats down relentlessly, the sand gets in his boots, and the only accommodations available are to be found in a hotel that doubles as a brothel. After securing a room, Hux stumbles back out into the harsh daylight. He desperately needs a smoke.

The lighter is half way to the cigarra dangling from his lips when he remembers.

“Shit,” he says out loud. A twi’lek smoking under the shade of the awning – one of the prostitutes working here, by the look of her sheer, gauzy clothing – gives him a curious look. “You’re not supposed to smoke when you’re pregnant, are you,” Hux says, half to himself, half directed at the twi’lek.

She huffs a laugh. “Only if you plan on keeping it,” she chuckles, taking a deep drag from her own cigarra. “You wanna get rid of it? I know a place. Cheap. It’s fast.”

Hux turns to look at her fully. Her skin is a lime green, and she looks tired, older than the age she probably is really. “Safe?” he asks hesitantly.

“Sure,” she shrugs. “Been there a few times myself. It’s clean.” She stubs out her cigarra and points to an alley. “Keep going down that way, then take a left at the big white building. It’s the clinic with the metal bench out front. Ask for Jana, tell them Viri sent you.”

“Thank you,” Hux says. He throws the packet of cigarras he brought with him to her, half as a token of thanks, half to get rid of the temptation to smoke them all anyway. With no real other plan, he wanders on autopilot in the direction of the clinic. It’s a further walk than he’d anticipated, especially in the afternoon sun and weakened by his constant nausea – by the time he gets there his head is swimming. It occurs to him that he has approximately another seven months of this nonsense ahead of him, if he keeps the pup growing inside him.

 _If_ he keeps it.

He’s grateful for the metal bench outside the clinic, covered by the shade of a neighbouring building, and sits there for a while considering his options. There is still that tiny, nagging voice in the back of his mind that desperately wants this child against all logic and reason. Well. He estimates that he has enough time, at least, to stay the night in Mos Eisley before moving on tomorrow. Perhaps he can get the clinic to check him over, to confirm the pregnancy test’s analysis and that the foetus is viable before anything else. He can come back tomorrow morning after he thinks it over.

Plan in mind, he enters the clinic. There is, thankfully, a bored-looking human staffing the desk rather than some other species, a middle-aged beta woman with greying hair in a messy bun.

Hux clears his throat. “I’m looking for- Jana?” he tries.

“That’s me,” the woman sighs, finally turning her irritated gaze from the holopad in front of her to Hux. She sniffs, wrinkling her nose. “That cloak isn’t hiding a damn thing from me, kid. I’ve been at this job for years, I can smell an omega from a mile.”

The omega can’t help but flush at that, feeling foolish for ever wearing Ren’s cloak in the first place. “Viri sent me,” he says by way of reply. “I think I’m pregnant.”

Jana snorts derisively. “I can smell that, too,” she huffs. “About a month or two along I’d wager, not such a strong scent yet. Viri, huh? You wanna get rid of it?”

“I don’t know,” Hux admits. Jana’s jaded face seems to soften at that, and she regards him with something akin to pity. “Could you…do you have the facilities to check it? Maybe it’s not healthy. Maybe there’s no point keeping it anyway.”

The woman stands up from her desk and gestures for Hux to follow her into a back room. It looks sterile enough, a clean sheet laid over a sturdy examination table, until Jana opens a cupboard and pulls down a rusty, haphazard looking machine from the back of it.

“What?” she snaps at Hux’s look of indignant horror. “Most all of our customers want to get rid of babies, not check their health. Hardly ever need to use this thing,” she grumbles, bringing the machine to life by pounding it once with her fist. “Anyway, it’s external, so you can wipe that look off your face. Lie down.”

Hux reluctantly does as instructed, lying back against the table. Jana sweeps the machine over his abdomen, fiddling with dials now and then.

“Hate to tell you, but it’s perfectly fine,” she grunts after a while. “Nothing abnormal. Foetus is- oh!” For a long, worrying moment, she says nothing, frowning down at the readouts, but then Jana grins down at him, revealing three silver teeth. “Looks like you’ve got twins.”

Never has he so keenly felt the appeal of indulging in a Kylo Ren-level tantrum.

 

*

 

It’s long past midnight, and Hux lies on his creaky, sagging bed back at the hotel, still filled with fury.

Twins. Fucking _twins_. Of course Kylo goddamn Ren couldn’t impregnate him with a single pup like a normal alpha, of course he had to continue Darth Vader’s legacy in this way too. (Hux knows, rationally, that Ren had absolutely no control over this. Still, that doesn’t do much to curb the urge to hunt the alpha down and castrate him; he supposes he should just be thankful that the force hasn’t deemed fit to give him triplets. He might have terminated them then and there on Jana’s table if it had.)

He wonders if Ren knows that Hux is pregnant by now, if perhaps he can sense it in the force with his usual nonsense. He wonders, despite himself, what the alpha would feel about becoming a sire, if he’d have any interest in the tiny lives forming inside of Hux this very moment. He can’t imagine Kylo’s reaction to it; perhaps he would be happy to have another thing in common with Vader, but that’s as far as Hux’s imagination will reach.

The omega closes his eyes with a sigh. A prostitute has been working his night shift next door for hours now, screeching ear-piercing orgasms that he must surely be faking at least once every twenty minutes. Even if Hux’s thoughts weren’t consumed with indecision, the noise would keep him from sleep. He tries not to let it remind him of the marathon sex that led to his current predicament and fails, miserably.

Kylo had been…a strangely considerate lover, despite his roughness. Had insisted on Hux consenting to let the alpha help him through his heat before it started, insisted the General wouldn’t be of sound mind once it began. Even promised to defy Snoke if the omega truly, truly didn’t want his help. Hux had assumed that the event would be a punishment for Kylo, too, had half-expected that Kylo would refuse to aid him out of spite more than anything. They were bitter rivals, after all.

But Kylo had fed and bathed and fucked him spectacularly, held him close and pet him gently while Hux was tied on his knot, whispered filthy endearments in his ear and wiped the cum and slick from between his legs with clean, damp cloths. It was unexpectedly painful when Snoke had summoned Kylo for training immediately after the heat ended; Hux supposed that the separation was part of the punishment, too.

He’s startled from his memories by another overdramatic, wailing shriek from the room next door and only barely restrains himself from pounding a fist against the wall – it wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself. _Us_ , some traitorous part of him corrects, hands hovering over his abdomen.

He needs a plan. His options, he reasons, are as follows:

Option one: terminate the pregnancy. Visit Jana tomorrow at earliest possible convenience. Return to the First Order. Likely outcome: Snoke will be pissed. Ren will be furious. Possibly he will have to go through this mess all over again, with even less chance of escape.

Option one, corrected: terminate the pregnancy. Visit Jana tomorrow at earliest possible convenience. Assume a new identity and career and get as far the fuck away from the First Order as possible.

Option two: keep them. Appeal to the Resistance for asylum. He’s carrying the next generation of Skywalkers, after all, and General Organa would surely not pass up the chance to be a grandmother, to have some piece of her estranged son back in her life. Likely outcome: the other Skywalker will take them away much the same as Snoke would. He can’t imagine that they won’t turn out to be force sensitive, but the thought of his children being taken from him and trained as Jedi fills him with a dread as equal to the thought of Snoke turning them into Sith. The force, from his experience with Kylo and Snoke, is something to be avoided at all costs.

Option three: keep them. Return to the First Order. Accept the inevitable. Perhaps, if he’s lucky, he can get one of the medical officers to ‘accidentally’ make him infertile afterwards and avoid being Ren’s personal baby factory in future. Likely outcome: too many variables to count, most predicted outcomes involving death once he ceases to be of use. Off the table.

His only real option, then, if he wants to keep them, is to run and keep running.

Head pounding with withdrawal, all he really, desperately wants is a smoke. If he’d known he’d be in this mess, he would have chain-smoked for weeks before his heat. (If he’d known he’d be in this mess, he would have quit weeks ago). He rolls over in his uncomfortable bed, face unexpectedly landing in the bunched up heap of Kylo’s cloak. The lingering scent of the alpha is strangely calming to him now; he wonders if that’s the pregnancy’s doing or if it’s just the memory of the last time his nose had been filled with that heavy smell.

The fog in his mind clears – or thickens with natural instinct maybe, he’s not sure. His decision is made. He’s going to keep his pups. He’ll tear apart anyone that tries to get in his way. Even their sire, if he has to.

It’s time to run.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay I'm happy people seem to be excited for more of this story! I've already got maybe half of it written, so a lot of it is just filling in the gaps right now. Expect another update soon!

In the cold of the Supreme Leader’s citadel, Kylo Ren meditates.

There has been an odd tremor in the force lately, but where it’s coming from he cannot seem to place. The last time he’d felt something similar was when his uncle, an omega just like his twin, had been pregnant with Rey; perhaps his cousin has gone and gotten herself knocked up. He bristles at the thought of being bested by not only an untrained scavenger but someone reckless enough to allow a teen pregnancy (he’s not entirely sure how old she is now, but she can hardly be much more than twenty, he thinks).

He’s abruptly thrown out of his meditation by the memory of Hux tight around his knot two months ago, begging to be filled with his seed.

Kylo curses under his breath. Since Snoke’s punishment – if it could be called that, as pleasurable as it had been – he finds himself increasingly distracted by thoughts of the omega. Each time he tries to meditate on the source of the disturbance in the force, some explicit memory will violently surface to the forefront of his mind. He’d considered that perhaps the force is trying to tell him something, but- no. Hux had assured him that his birth control regimen was sound, even scoffed at his offer of using condoms (admittedly, at that point he was already drooling at the sweet scent of Hux in heat, he hadn’t pushed all that hard for using them). The General would never allow himself to be bred so foolishly.

Perhaps Snoke knew how the encounter would distract Kylo, and this is all another elaborate test. The abrupt separation after three straight days with his- _the_ omega, Kylo corrects himself, not his (not yet), was surely meant to be the real punishment. He sighs and settles back into position in the large, empty chamber he trains in, clearing his mind to resume his investigation.

A feeling like fire rips through him as he does, suddenly met with Snoke’s burning, furious rage rumbling through the force.

Kylo stands abruptly, almost dizzy from the second hand feelings pulsing through his mind, running through the cavernous corridors of the citadel towards Snoke’s throne room on shaking legs. “Master,” he gasps out, hand hovering over his lightsaber defensively, “I sensed your-“ Snoke raises a hand to silence him, and Kylo’s teeth click as he snaps his jaw shut.

“Hux has defected,” the Supreme Leader hisses, eyes glinting malevolently.

If Kylo wasn’t dizzy before, he certainly is now. Impossible. Hux would sooner stage a coup than abandon the First Order. What could possibly have compelled the omega to defect? Kylo feels, in an odd way, personally betrayed. He tries to grab onto the vengeful coil snaking through him when he next speaks. “I’ll kill him,” he announces shakily. “I will have him hunted down for his treason. Allow me to take care of it personally, master.”

A pleased smile plays about the strange creature’s face, but Snoke shakes his head all the same. “No, my loyal apprentice,” he says. “I want him returned unharmed and alive. Not a scratch.”

Kylo frowns. “Surely he means to betray us,” he ventures. “Will you kill him yourself?”

At that, Snoke openly chuckles. “You will put your training on hold for now, Kylo Ren. Your orders are to retrieve the General – as I said, delicately, not a scratch. Once he’s back in our hands, then…well,” a sickly grin stretches across his face, “you did so seem to enjoy him last time. I will give him to you to keep as a reward for success in this mission.”

“You are wise and generous in all things,” Kylo responds automatically, bowing low, but even when he turns to prepare for his departure, he can’t shake his confusion.

 

*

 

Drifting through hyperspace in the back of a smuggler ship, Hux is busy throwing up in the refresher.

He’s not even sure why he bothers with breakfast at this point; his morning sickness has been plaguing him daily for weeks now, and lurching into lightspeed certainly isn’t doing his churning stomach any favours. True, he’s eating for three, and he needs to keep his strength up for any of this to work, but there’s not much point in eating if it’s all going to come back up. _Wasteful_ , he chides himself, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and struggling to his feet.

He’d managed to hitch a ride from Mos Eisley with a pair of non-humans, an Adarian and a Gungan, intensely grateful that all humans smelled and looked the same to them. Not a moment too soon, either – just as he was checking out of the hotel he saw a holoscreen behind the desk clerk with his face plastered on it. He is, as expected, a wanted man now. He’s not sure whether it’s a relief or not that the bounty on his head is conditional on him being alive and unharmed.

He stumbles back into the main cabin where the Gungan is sprawled over a couch, reading what looks to be some sort of cheap, romantic novella. The tall, gangly creature reminds him a little of Kylo, all limbs and wide shoulders – he huffs to himself with amusement at the thought, pulling Kylo’s cloak around himself tightly and breathing the scent of the alpha in deeply, letting it calm him. The Gungan tears up at something in the book, weeping loudly and muttering some rubbish about star-crossed lovers.

“How much longer until we reach Myrkr?” Hux rasps, throat still stinging with bile.

“Two day, maybe,” the Gungan sniffles, pulling out a tissue to blow his bill loudly and obnoxiously. Eyes still watery with tears, he peers at Hux curiously from behind the hanky. “You a-sick, human? You been barfin’.”

Hux considers a moment, before deciding there’s no harm in telling the truth. The Gungan seems a sentimental sort; perhaps this could be to his advantage. “I’m pregnant,” he says. It feels strange to tell somebody this out loud. Like somehow telling this lanky creature has made it that fraction more real.

The Gungan just blinks at him and frowns, confused. Ah, Hux thinks.

“You’re…Gungans lay eggs, don’t they?” Hux ventures, patting his stomach pointedly. “I’m carrying eggs. Tiny humans.”

Comprehension dawns on the taller creature’s face and the eyes at the top of his stalks light up with delight. “Ohhh, congratulation! Why you goin’ Myrkr? You buildin’ egg nest there?”

“Something like that,” Hux says, giving the Gungan a thin smile.

He is, in truth, going to be spending his pregnancy building ‘nests’ all over the galaxy. Now that he’s a wanted man, he doubts any one safe house will be enough to keep him from discovery. No, better to have many options to choose from, and if he wants any of them to evade discovery by force-wielders, he’s going to have to shield himself. Myrkr is home to the ysalamiri; Hux plans on buying as many of the creatures as he can and carrying one with him at all times. He doubts it will be foolproof, but their natural force repelling abilities should be enough to keep the Skywalkers off his trail for a while yet.

There is much to prepare before the birth.

 

*

 

Having grown up with tales of General Thrawn and his innovative use of ysalamiri, Hux has always had a certain romantic idea of the creatures in his mind – something with sharp, vicious teeth, scales that glint ominously in the light, piercing eyes, that sort of thing. He’d dreamed of having one snapping at the heels of his enemies as a cadet, and once again thought to acquire one when he’d been lumped with Kylo aboard the Finalizer. A deadly but beautiful pet, perfect for keeping certain meddling, alpha force-users out of his mind.

The single, fat, sleepy lizard he finds for sale after hours searching in a frontier town on Myrkr is anything but.

“And you…don’t have any others?” Hux asks the Togruta at the stall weakly, voice muffled by Kylo’s cowl tightly wrapped around his face.

Surrounded by her menagerie of bizarre creatures, each in cages piled ten high, the old woman snorts derisively, flicking a wrinkled lekku back over her shoulder. “You’re more than welcome to try and catch one yourself,” she gestures towards the dirt-road leading out of town to the wild forests of Myrkr. “Good luck finding one around here though, you won’t find an Olbio tree for miles, too far north. Now if it’s vornskrs you’re after, I’ve got four of those in the back…”

Hux ignores her rambling on the merits of keeping dwarf vornskrs over full size ones, politely nodding now and then as he stares forlornly at the fat ysalamir snoring in its cage. Of course the force wouldn’t take pity on him now, he thinks irritably; he _could_ spend the next few weeks hunting for them himself, but, for one thing, he has no idea how to catch the bastards, and for another his morning sickness shows no sign of abating. A trek in a humid forest is the last thing he wants right now. Besides, the Gungan and Adarian are leaving in the morning, too – the next ship out of this backwoods town won’t arrive for weeks.

With a deep, defeated sigh, Hux hands the Togruta a credit chip. “I’ll take it.”

She gives him a yellowed, gap-toothed grin, kicking the ysalamir’s cage towards him with the barest of care instructions. The lizard sleeps on. The wretched creature is _heavy_ , too, Hux thinks as he drags it back towards the smuggler’s ship – he finds himself impressed that Thrawn was said to carry one about on his shoulders. Perhaps he should have spent more time weight training with Kylo and Phasma after all. He feels so irritatingly _weak_ , lately, nauseous and tired and vaguely hormonal, but in any case, this should be good practice for carrying a twin on each hip.

“You’re just a big lump, aren’t you?” Hux grumbles down to his new lizard. The ysalamir only makes a hollow belching sound in the back of its throat in response. “So help me, Lump, if you don’t repel the force after all, I’m dumping you out of an airlock...”

 

*

 

A month after Hux goes missing, the unusual tremor in the force suddenly stills.

On his personal transporter, Kylo frowns in his meditation, trying to seek out the source of it once more. What has changed? If, indeed, it was a pregnancy, perhaps Rey has terminated it, or miscarried; he feels fairly sure that the disturbance is something to do with his own bloodline, but when he cautiously extends his consciousness towards what remains of his family, he feels nothing out of the ordinary – his mother’s great sorrow, Rey’s boundless energy, the bitter cloud over Luke’s heart-

_Hux trembles under his weight, moaning incoherently as Kylo shudders his orgasm into the tight, wet heat that locks his knot in place. With a curse under his breath, he sucks gently over the scent gland at the omega’s neck, teasing but not biting down – for all that he wants to claim the man under him as his own, Hux did not give him permission before the heat, and the way he bares his neck invitingly now is hardly rational. No, instead Kylo mouths and nibbles his way up to the omega’s ear. “You’re going to carry my litter one day,” he murmurs, and the omega shivers with delight. “Would you like that, Hux? You’d be a fine breeder.” His cock pulses again at the thought of Hux’s delicate stomach swelling with his pups._

Kylo gasps out of his meditation, again, cursing loudly. Even if the tremor in the force has subsided, the distractions have not; his mind seems determined to drag him back to three months ago. The force is trying to tell him something, he’s sure of it now – a clue to why Hux left, but the exact reason evades him. He wonders, somewhat self-consciously, if Hux had felt sharing his heat with Kylo was an indignity after all, a slight from the Supreme Leader too hard to bear, but…no. Hux had only radiated ecstasy and satisfaction during his heat, and an echoing sense of loss that chased him halfway to Snoke’s citadel when Kylo was ordered to leave.

He’s interrupted from his self pity when the console chimes at him from the cockpit.

Information from the First Order; there has been another sighting of Hux. Kylo frowns down at the text before him. This is the fourth such piece of intel that has been received, and each time Hux is spotted on a different planet in vastly different sectors of the galaxy. Whatever he’s doing, there doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. Knowing Hux, the strategy is probably intentional. This time the information has an image attached, a photo taken from a distance – it’s not even recognizably Hux, just a figure dressed in black and cloaked in…

… _Kylo’s_ cloak. He’d recognize those holes where his lightsaber accidentally caught the cloak anywhere. His heart lurches possessively in his chest; whatever Hux’s reasons for defecting, he has held onto this one piece of the alpha, masks himself in it. There’s something immensely reassuring about the thought.

He sets a course for the planet immediately, determined not to let Hux evade him again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your comments everybody, I'm still getting around to replying! Ahh I'm so happy you guys are liking this so far! More Kylo next chapter, I promise.

_“You’re going to carry my litter one day,” Kylo murmurs softly, sucking at his earlobe. “Would you like that, Hux?”_

Hux blinks awake groggily.

Just a dream, a memory, he thinks with a sigh, hand automatically moving to rest defensively on his stomach. He’s starting to show now; he’s become doubly glad of Kylo’s old cloak, masking not just his scent but his ever swelling abdomen. The memory had been pleasant at the time, but now his mind colours it with a sour bitterness. Had Kylo been teasing him, knowing full well of Snoke’s plans to mate the two of them? All of that fuss about getting his consent before his heat, and yet no warning of…this.

The omega sits up in bed, grudgingly awake. He’s in his fourth safe house – after the trip with the Gungan and Adarian to Myrkr, he’s taken to referring to them as his nests, somewhat fondly. This one is blessedly urban, a small, one room apartment he’d purchased in the less desirable parts of Cloud City with easy amenities and no questions asked. Staying in such a densely populated city is a risk – he’ll be moving on to construct his next home somewhere more isolated soon, only…

Only he’s so very tired all the time now. Almost four months pregnant, the strain on his body of carrying and nurturing twins is beginning to become apparent. He could quite happily spend the rest of his term napping in bed and sating his sudden, intense cravings for blue yoghurt.

Hux sighs, looking down at the floor to check on Lump; the ysalamir seems content enough in its cage, asleep and snoring noisily as usual from the corner of the room. He’s not sure he’s seen Lump awake for more than half an hour in the entire time since he bought it. The sky is still dark outside, deep in the middle of the night cycle, so Hux settles back down to try and sleep again too.

_Who are you?_

He blinks groggily in the darkness. _Who are you?_ The voice repeats again, distant, muffled as if underwater. A woman’s voice. Familiar somehow.

“I’m nobody,” Hux mutters sleepily.

 _Why do you call to me in the force?_ It asks him. _Why am I connected to you?_

At the mention of the force, Hux jolts into alertness, suddenly placing the voice. He throws up his mental shields as he used to with Kylo, long practiced in forcibly shoving the knight out of his head, and scrambles onto the floor to throw himself over Lump’s cage. Impossible, she shouldn’t have been able to-

But the presence is gone now.

Hux groans, pressing his face against the cool bars of the cage. She knows. General Organa _knows_. He doesn’t quite understand how, but he’s sure that she knows, after that, felt the sparks of life inside of him just before he pushed her out. Fuck. He’d been planning to stay a few days more in this apartment and rest.

“Off we go again, then,” he sighs down to Lump, and the lizard blinks serenely back at him.

 

*

 

Alone in her office, Leia rubs at her temples tiredly.

“Have you felt it?” Luke had asked her over their shared bond. Of course she had felt it; she may not be as strong in the force as her twin or her niece, but there was something personal about the strange rumble in the force lately. Almost as suddenly as it arrived, it disappeared to Luke and Rey, but somehow Leia still felt it as if at a great distance. Whatever, or whoever, they were feeling, it’s trying to hide itself now.

Call it a mother’s intuition, but Leia has the distinct feeling that this is all her son’s fault.

Honestly, she doesn’t have time to be dealing with this. The First Order has put a bounty on their own General’s head, and it’s imperative that the Resistance captures Hux before they do. There is no solid intelligence that suggests any reasoning for the General’s sudden defection and subsequent disappearance, but the enemy seems convinced enough that he’s still among the living, at least. There’s no telling what valuable information a man so highly ranked in the First Order could have, but the Resistance has just as few leads to his location as the enemy.

 _Hells, I’m so tired_.

Leia blinks. Yes, she’s tired but…

_Do I really have another five months of this?_

That is absolutely not her own voice in her head right now. Cautiously, she tries to extend her consciousness as Luke taught her; the intruder in her mind isn’t one she recognizes, but nor does it seem aware that it’s connected itself to her. It feels similar to the disturbance that’s been plaguing her recently – at a great distance, blurry and hard to focus on, like a damaged holofilm. Stranger still, it seems to echo, as if the presence is not one person but…three?

 _I’m so tired_ , it repeats, quieter, and she realizes that whoever this is, they’re falling asleep. The connection will be lost if she doesn’t do something to keep them in her mind.

“Who are you?” she asks out loud. The presence startles, suddenly realizing that it’s not alone. She repeats herself, trying to project to them more clearly. “Who are you?”

 _I’m nobody_ , it replies, and it echoes around her mind with a feeling of bone deep exhaustion. Part of her wants to correct it – _we’re_ nobody, it should be, Leia thinks. Does this person not consider the other two a part of them? She feels the connection slipping again and presses on more forcefully before it can wither away.

“Why do you call to me in the force?” she demands. “Why am I connected to you?”

Suddenly the connection flares bright and hot and so, so full of fear and animal instinct, and she feels – _oh!_ – before, like a physical blow, the connection is abruptly severed, knocking her back in her chair. It feels much the same as when she tries to connect again to her wayward son and he violently forces her away. As disoriented as the experience has left her, the world seems to click into place with alarming clarity:

General Hux is carrying twins. _Ben’s_ twins.

Another five months, he’d said; the timeline all adds up now. Hux has been missing for a few months, and it must have taken him a couple of weeks beforehand to confirm his suspicions. But why would he not stay with the First Order? Are her son’s offspring in some sort of danger? She reaches, uncertainly, for what resentfully lingers of her son’s connection, and finds it in an entirely different part of the galaxy to wherever Hux was originating from, before, as usual, it forces her away. Could it be that Kylo Ren hadn’t approved of the pregnancy? Threatened Hux with termination? Or their leader, Snoke, perhaps?

“Luke, hear me,” Leia calls desperately, feeling their connection stir with concern at once. “I know what the disturbance is.”

“What is it?” Luke’s disembodied voice presses curiously from around her.

The words sound absurd before she even says them aloud, and she almost laughs. “I’m going to be a grandmother.”

 

*

 

Four and a half months into his pregnancy, Hux comes to yet another horrifying realization in the endless stream of them he seems to be having lately.

With the same military fervour that he used to apply to managing the First Order, he has now assembled eight nests on eight different planets, all fully stocked with rations, clothing, blankets and blasters. He has managed to swindle his way into owning three separate ships, one hidden in a secure parking facility on a smoggy city planet, the other hidden in an asteroid field (and wasn’t that an adventure), while he currently occupies the third on his way to the next location. He has Lump with him at all times, safely caged and kept fed by automatic nutrition systems. And yet…

He still has no idea how to take care of a baby. Never mind _two_ of them.

“Fuck,” he says loudly to the void of space hurtling past the windows outside at lightspeed.

The Academy had covered sex education, naturally, explained what alphas, betas and omegas could all expect from their bodies before puberty hit with all the force of an ion cannon, but child rearing had hardly been deemed a worthy subject. To be quite honest, most of the cadets weren’t even expected to reach child-rearing age, and even those that did were intended to be too devoted to the First Order to worry about starting families.

Hux has, perhaps out of the sheer panic that’s driving his every action lately, been operating under the assumption that the twins will emerge from him as two fully formed humans with the ability to eat solid food and take care of themselves. Shit. None of the nests have- milk? Formula? Baby food? When does that even change? As an only child raised by a nanny droid, the world of child rearing is terribly foreign to the omega. He supposes part of him had been hoping that instinct would take over and things would come naturally to him once they were born.

 _Foolish_ , he chides himself. This error will have to be corrected.

But how? He can’t exactly enrol in a pre-natal class while on the run. Perhaps he could kidnap a nursemaid or midwife, but…no. Too much of a risk; they could just as easily turn the situation around on him and hand him in to the First Order for the bounty. Better to stay alone. He could scour the holonet, buy a datapad on the subject at his next stop, he supposes. It’s a start. He’ll do that. But still, he doubts a purely theoretical knowledge will help him in the middle of labour.

Oh, _hells_. Labour. That’s a thing that’s going to happen.

What he needs, truly, is someone with experience. With a sigh, Hux leans back in the pilot chair and curls his hands around his stomach, trying to focus on the twins.

Since the incident that night in Cloud City, General Organa has tried to contact him again almost daily; he’s deduced that it isn’t him, exactly, that she has some sort of force connection with, but the twins kicking inside of him. He seems to be more of an accessory, will likely lose the thread that ties him to Organa as soon as the umbilical cords are cut. Unfortunately, being just an accessory, he also doesn’t seem to be able to stop her from finding the twins without also resorting to draping Lump around his shoulders like a bizarre, scaly scarf.

The Resistance has come a lot closer to catching him than the First Order has, lately, likely due to Organa’s abilities. It’s both a blessing and a curse; now he can pit them against one another in the search for him, but now he also has double the amount of people hunting him. The thought that Kylo Ren hasn’t attempted to use his abilities to the same end leaves Hux feeling oddly hurt. Perhaps he truly doesn’t care about being a sire after all, only did it on Snoke’s orders.

So be it. Kylo would be a shitty sire anyway, the omega thinks petulantly.

Hux scrunches up his face and tries to push the thought of the alpha away, instead peeling the sleeping ysalamir around his shoulders off and onto the empty co-pilot’s seat.

“Organa,” he calls out, focusing again on his warm stomach. He always feels faintly idiotic trying to do things with the force like this. Kylo had once described him as “as force-sensitive as a rock”.

But nevertheless, the presence of the woman that has essentially become his mother-in-law floods into his mind. _Hux_ , she responds. _Where are you? Let us help you, please_.

Hux scoffs. “You can help me right now by answering a question for me,” he says imperiously, but he’s sure Leia can feel him faltering, embarrassed by his own ignorance.

A kind of calm, welcoming patience washes over him. _Anything_ , Organa says.

“What will they need?” he asks, voice as small as he feels right now. “When they’re born, I mean. I don’t- I’m preparing. Trying to.”

 _Come to us_ , Leia insists yet again. _We can help you. We have the supplies they’ll need._

Impulsively, and, somewhat childishly, he’ll think with embarrassment later, Hux floods their connection with all of the pent up anger and frustration he feels, preparing to slam Organa out again. He just about catches the desperate, _Wait!_ _Hux, wait,_ too late to stop him from forcing her out of his head. Lump makes a noise of startled protest as he’s dragged by the tail and hitched over the omega’s shoulder again, trying to wriggle to get away as Hux _screams_ at the viewports. No he will not go to the goddamn Resistance, would rather put a blaster to his own head than let the Skywalker twins come within a solar system of his offspring, no better than Snoke, no better than Snoke, foolish, foolish, _idiot_ , now she knows this, too, knows just how fucking unprepared he is for parenthood, no sire, no alpha, no Kylo, nothing, nothing-

Something shifts.

Hux hiccups around a sob, pausing. There, again. For the first time, a kick; the twins.

The omega crumples to his knees, arms curling around his stomach. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers weakly, “I didn’t mean to scare you, my darlings, it’s okay, it’s all okay.”

And it has to be, doesn’t it? He wipes the tears and snot from his face, pushing away his panic through sheer force of will; he’s a father now, he doesn’t have time for anxiety and pride anymore, only his twins and ensuring their safety. Hells, he was the youngest General the First Order had ever seen – he can do this. Lump gives him an affectionate, worried flick of its tongue, settling itself closer around his neck, and a hysterical bubble of laughter forces its way out of Hux at the feeling.

Think, now. _Think_.

 

*

 

Weeks later, Hux considers that this is perhaps not the best plan he’s ever had. Still, if his time at the Academy taught him nothing else, it’s to make do with what resources you have, and five months into his pregnancy he finds himself with precious few of them.

But the Gungan and the Adarian he met months ago in Mos Eisley have proved surprisingly useful; the Gungan – Nars, his name is – is an absolute moron with a heart too big for the smuggling business and an obscenely large collection of romance novels. Askiir, the Adarian, at least has an inkling that Hux is a wanted man, but seems utterly incapable of matching human faces to their mugshots in the bounty listings. It probably helps that his hair has grown longer than it was, falling messily to the side of his face instead of the neatly slicked-back style he favoured on the Finalizer.

He feels reluctantly impressed with his past self for telling Nars about his…condition, those months ago, apparently having read the Gungan’s disposition correctly; he’d called the pair of smugglers up again in tears (and oh, how _irritatingly_ easy it is to make himself cry now, with hormones rampaging through him), and with a sob story and a pile of credits, Askiir and Nars had accepted the job without question.

In the midday light on a small but civilized planet near the Outer Rim, the omega blinks up at the birthing facility in front of him, Askiir and Nars on either side of him, his arm hooked around the Gungan’s. Lump is precariously balanced on his head – Hux has a cloak and veil over him, and the ysalamir just about changes his silhouette to something less than human. If Lump stays still, the lizard can almost pass for being the elongated skull of an Adarian.

The nurse manning the front desk pales slightly at the sight of the trio as they stroll in.

“This my wife, we have appointment!” Nars says cheerfully. The nurse – some sort of aquatic species, by the gills that flicker anxiously on her neck – looks doubtfully at the covered omega between the taller pair.

“Name…?” she asks hesitantly.

“Mistah and Missus Nars!” the Gungan grins, and Hux grits his teeth to resist the urge to kick the lanky bastard. At the feel of Askiir tensing beside him, apparently the Adarian is just as irritated with his partner for giving away his real name.

The nurse flicks her eyes up to Askiir suspiciously. “And you are?”

“The sperm donor,” Askiir says seriously without missing a beat. The poor nurse gapes for a moment, but eventually nods shakily, gesturing towards the mammalian ward and handing Nars a clipboard with a form to fill out. So far, so good, Hux thinks anxiously, settling down in the waiting room between his odd protectors. Hidden under his cloak, he runs his hands over the blasters strapped to each of his thighs. The plan is simple. Idiotic, but simple.

Eventually, a human beta emerges from one of the rooms. “Mrs….Nars?” he calls out uncertainly, and Hux stands. The pair of smugglers move to follow. “Oh, ah, just you please, ma’am,” the doctor says apologetically.

“That’s fine, they’ll wait just outside the door, then,” Hux says, nodding pointedly to the pair. Askiir shrugs his assent, and Hux follows the beta into an examination room.

“Now, I usually don’t deal with Adarians, ma’am, I’m really more of a specialist for my own species, so I’m not sure why you requested a…human…“ the doctor trails off as he turns. Even with the swell of his pregnant stomach, Hux supposes he cuts an imposing figure, relieved of the veil and cloak, gazing coldly at the beta with a blaster pointed at the doctor’s forehead. For once in the lizard’s life, Lump actually helps, choosing that moment to slither ominously over the omega’s shoulders, fixing the beta with its beady eyes.

“This is what’s going to happen,” Hux hisses. “You’re going to disconnect your tools from the hospital’s systems. There’s going to be no record of this examination. You’re going to check me over, you’re going to tell me how my pups are doing, and then you’re going to call a midwife droid. You’re going to send the droid away with me, and if you play along, nobody is going to die.”

“I- oh, god, ma’am- no, uh- sir? P-please, th-this is a _birthing hospital_ ,” the beta chokes out. He’s trembling. Good.

“Now, please,” Hux says coolly, shifting his grip on the blaster, and the doctor scrambles into action.

The process isn’t all that different from his experience with Jana, only with a more advanced machine and a weapon constantly trained on his examiner. He has to bark threats at the beta a few times to get him to stop shaking; he only plans on doing this once before the birth, he needs an accurate reading from the damn scanner.

“S-so, there are your twins,” the beta stutters, and- _oh_. Even Hux can’t help but gasp at the blurry scan of them on screen, curled tightly together inside of him. “B-but I guess you already knew there were t-two. Did you w-want to know their sexes now, or wait unt-til the birth?”

Does he want to know? He’s never even considered it. “I’ll wait,” he says eventually, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the screen. “They’re healthy?”

“Very much,” the beta nods enthusiastically. “All the readings are g-good. Y-you might want to consider n-nutrient supplements, though, just a precaution with two of them to support.”

Hux gives the doctor a genuine smile – the one Kylo always said looked a little like a predator about to feast. _Don’t think of Kylo now_. “Wonderful,” Hux says. “Now, the droid, if you please.”

The midwife droid totters in a few minutes after it’s called; it only comes up to Hux’s hip, but it’s a stocky, sturdy little thing, silver with glowing blue optics. Veil covering the blaster the omega continues to train on the doctor, the droid obediently allows itself to be connected to a console, oblivious to the situation at hand.

“Trackers?” Hux questions, digging the tip of the blaster into the beta’s side threateningly.

“N-none,” the beta assures, leaning over to allow Hux to look at the diagnostics himself. Nothing untoward, a standard MD-W unit sold all over the galaxy. “S-sir, really, this is a _civilian_ planet, you could have just-“

“Quiet,” Hux snaps. With a few more alterations to the droid’s protocols, the midwife unit has been disconnected from the hospital’s systems. “MD-W7, you will be accompanying me off planet.”

“Certainly,” the droid chirps pleasantly. It turns to the doctor curiously. “Will I be returned after the birth, doctor?”

“S-sure, W7,” the beta nods uncertainly. “Accompany Mrs. Nars out and take good care of those children, now, w-won’t you?” He breathes a deep sigh of relief as the droid toddles out of the room, Hux in tow. The smugglers look up curiously as the omega exits the room, warily glancing at the loose thread still sweating behind them. But before the door can shut-

“Oh, Askiir- the doctor wanted to ask you a few questions about your family history,” Hux says airily from under the veil. “Follow him in, won’t you?”

The Adarian smirks, cracking his knuckles. The door closes before the beta can scream.

Hux supposes he should feel a little bad for whatever poor nurse finds the doctor, but he can't find it in himself to care. He doubts very much that this will be the last time he kills for the sake of protecting his pups. In a better mood than he's been in for months, he waits for Askiir with Nars and MD-W7 in the gift shop, even adding a new romance novel for the Gungan to the pile of maternity guides in his shopping cart.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeere's Kylo! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter too!

Four months after Hux disappears, Kylo Ren has lost count of the amount of times he’s lost his temper at this mission. The omega is nowhere in the galaxy to be found, and as a result, more than a few stormtroopers have lost their lives finding themselves at the wrong end of Kylo’s frustration. He’s running out of Knights to station on the planets Hux has been seen on. When Kylo Ren stumbles not across Hux but on a Resistance group trying to track the omega down also, he outright slaughters them in a red haze of rage.

This mission has become intensely personal.

Well, he supposes, at least if the Resistance is hunting Hux too, that means that the General hasn’t defected to them. It would be an insult too much to bear to know that his- no, damn it all, _the_ omega, Kylo corrects himself for the thousandth time, has joined his mother’s side. He’s going to mark Hux out of spite when he finds him; he should have bitten down on the omega’s neck when he had the chance. (He tries very hard not to think of the expanse of sweet-smelling, pale skin bared before his sharp teeth, and fails, as usual.)

Which is why, with all of that rage and betrayal and anger and half-suppressed lust flowing through him, it’s almost comical how he _actually_ stumbles across the man.

Kylo is on a dusty, wind-swept service planet refuelling his ship and replenishing his supply of rations while waiting for a new lead on the omega, sipping idly at a container of some sickly-sweet green liquid that passes for an energy drink here, mask off, when there, at the next bay over, casually refuelling his own ship, is Hux.

“ _You_ ,” he roars unthinkingly, throwing down his drink with a splatter. He ignites his lightsaber automatically and stalks towards the red-haired man. Well. There goes the element of surprise, then.

Hux freezes where he is, head whipping around to look at Kylo with wide eyes, something primal about the fear on his face. He can see, the closer he stomps towards the smaller man, that Hux is still wearing his old, ratty cloak, along with some odd, brown leather accessory curled over his shoulders. The cloak hangs strangely on Hux, perhaps concealing some sort of weapon or armour, knowing the (former?) General.

And then the wind blows, and everything goes to hell.

A strong gust blasts the omega’s scent towards Kylo, and it’s- different. The same sweet, heady smell that he remembers from Hux’s heat, familiar, but somehow more vulnerable, begging the alpha for protection rather than mating, and infinitely distracting. The cloak billows in the sudden wind, and Kylo sees-

Oh. Ohhh shit.

It’s the alpha’s turn to flinch and pause in his step at the sight of Hux’s definitely pregnant stomach. The realization is like a physical blow to his brain. But before he can regain his bearings, the omega’s expression hardens into something cold, dangerous, and fiercely protective, and Kylo realizes what exactly the very-much-alive leathery thing curled sleepily around Hux’s shoulders is.

It’s a fucking ysalamir, and Kylo has stepped within its range.

With automatic reflexes, Hux raises a blaster and fires point blank at the alpha’s chest. Unable to call upon the force inside the ysalamir’s bubble, it knocks Kylo backwards – later, he will consider the fact that he probably would have been too distracted by his mind screaming _Hux is pregnant Hux is pregnant Hux is pregnant_ on repeat to have blocked the blast anyway. He convulses and spasms on the hard, dusty ground – set to stun, then. How kind. Now it’s the omega’s turn to stalk towards him, stopping to tower above him and pin Kylo down with a heavy black boot to the chest. He aims the blaster at Kylo’s forehead.

“Leave us alone, or the next time it won’t be set to stun,” Hux hisses, and the ire in his eyes is something truly beautiful to behold, Kylo thinks in his daze. With Hux’s boot pinning him to the ground he has an unobstructed view up the cloak now, eyes rolling to the swell of the omega’s stomach stretching under his black shirt. Hux’s scent almost overwhelms him, this close, after being away so long, and he wants so badly just to bite and take Hux again then and there, just to- oh. _Oh_. Suddenly, all of the force visions he’s been treated to lately make alarming sense.

“I-is it-t m-mine?” Kylo manages weakly through chattering teeth, body still rippling with the remains of the stun charge.

Hux’s fury falters at that, looking down at Kylo instead with a mixture of disbelief, confusion, and the faintest trace of hurt. “You…didn’t know?” the omega mumbles, but then his features twist into anger again. He grinds his boot down harder against Kylo’s sternum. “ _You_ were the one that switched out my birth control, asshole, of course they’re fucking yours.”

 _They_. Kylo’s head spins. There’s more than one. And they’re _his_. But Hux thinks he…?

“I didn’t touch your birth control,” he snaps up at the omega, the charge finally receding from his body. How could Hux even…!? “ _Fuck you_!! I asked if you wanted condoms and you said you had it covered!”

“ _You already did fuck me_!!” Hux roars back, firing another point-blank stun blast at the alpha underneath him. Kylo chokes with pain as he convulses, the shudders wracking through his body almost knocking Hux’s foot off of him. “That’s why I’m in this force-damned situation! The pills failed and it sure as hell wasn’t _my_ doing, _Ren_. Or did Snoke fail to tell you of his plans to have you sire new force users, too?”

If Kylo had any control of what his body was doing right now, he would probably freeze in horror, but as it is he can only just about manage to shakily respond through clenched teeth. “He d-di-dn’t…Sssn-n-oke wou-uld n-never…”

But of course he would.

And it’s absolutely the wrong thing to say to Hux at this moment; the omega screeches at him wordlessly, reaching down to grab a fistful of Kylo’s clothes and drag his head up to look the omega in the eye.

“Stay the fuck away from us,” Hux hisses, and then he slams Kylo’s head back hard against the ground, and everything goes black.

Hux and his ship are both long gone by the time he comes to, still lying there on the dusty tarmac. He notices, absently, through the throbbing pain in his head, that the cloak he was wearing has been replaced with the old, ripped one the omega had stolen, wrapping him pleasantly in the lingering scent of Hux. It hurts at the same time as it comforts.

Kylo doesn’t quite know how to react to the day he’s had, so he falls back on his usual modus operandi and goes on a rampage of destruction through the service station. His mind is always so much clearer when he’s soaked in the blood of others, after all (he takes the cloak off first – he has a feeling that he’s going to want to bury his face in Hux’s scent later, when any of this makes sense). When the last of the unfortunate native residents are cut down with an easy swing of his lightsaber, Kylo has reached what he assumes were the same conclusions that Hux came to months ago:

One: this is their real punishment for Starkiller. Snoke didn’t tell him on purpose. If he had known, he would without a doubt have run back to the Finalizer to lurk protectively around the omega until after the birth, regardless of the Supreme Leader’s orders.

Two: Hux was not supposed to run. Hux was not supposed to want them (how many, Kylo wonders? Surely no more than twins). Snoke had expected the omega to hand over their offspring willingly.

Three, absolutely incomprehensible still: Kylo is going to be a father.

Four, surprisingly devastating: Hux doesn’t want him to be there to father them.

He looks around the blood-stained chaos that remains of the now very-much-on-fire service station and thinks the omega may have a point. But- no, to hell with that line of logic. Hux doesn’t have a point; how could he think that Kylo would ever turn his temper on his own brood? _Because you’ve turned it on Hux before_ , his treacherous mind supplies immediately.

 _Never again_ , he tells it defensively. Hux is _his_ omega now, and he will do everything in his extensive power to keep what is his from harm. Even if they aren’t bonded ( _yet_ , he thinks), they are most certainly mated.

Now if only he can convince Hux of that.

 

*

 

Hux had been under the impression that his bouts of morning sickness were finished with, but here he is again, head in a toilet bowl. At least this time he’s on his own ship, safely hidden in an asteroid field, and the nausea probably has less to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the fact that _Kylo didn’t know_.

And if Kylo didn’t tamper with his birth control, who did? Who else in the First Order was working against him on Snoke’s orders?

He retches again at the thought, but it comes up dry. Lump makes an unhappy _meep_ from Hux’s shoulders at the lurch, attempting to wriggle away for the third time, but the omega absolutely refuses to be without the lizard right now, lifting the fat thing to replace it around his neck. He can already feel the faintest trace of Kylo’s presence desperately trying to force its way into his mind, ysalamir or not. Well; at least the alpha is interested in the fate of his progeny, Hux supposes. He’s not sure whether that’s comforting, only that he can’t think of anyone he’d like to speak to less right now, save for Snoke, perhaps. Of all the stupid places Kylo could have caught him – a service station, for fuck’s sake.

The twins kick fitfully inside of him; they’ve been moving about since he came face to face with the alpha again. “Traitors,” he grumbles through the acid in his throat. “Don’t tell me you actually _want_ Kylo as your sire.” Maybe it’s a force thing, he thinks deliriously, resting his head against the cool toilet bowl; Kylo activated something, maybe, more trouble and strife for the omega, no doubt, what joy, what joy…

He stays like that for a long time, letting the heady mix of nausea and anxiety swirl through him. Eventually Lump’s wriggling becomes too annoying to bear, and he makes his way to the old armchair the ship had for some reason come installed with, while MD-W7 makes concerned noises and tries to force a protein bar into him. Hux takes it and chews it absently, if only to get the droid to go back to her charging station and leave him be.

Somehow it was easy, so simple to be angry at Kylo and keep him away when he’d thought the alpha had no interest. Now…now he clutches at the fresh cloak he stole from Kylo and shudders. Now he wants nothing more than to turn this ship around and run straight into the alpha’s arms, slave to the evolutionary instinct that compels him to seek protection and security from his mate.

But with Kylo comes Snoke.

Would he really give up his master, his training, his life’s work, the thing he killed his own sire for, for an omega he fucked through heat once? For two pups he’s never even met? Hux doubts it. No, even if Kylo did want the three of them, he’d want them back in the hands of the Supreme Leader. The separation is a price he’s willing to pay. He has the new cloak; the protective, possessive burst of scent Kylo had instinctively released on seeing his stomach. It will have to be enough.

 

*

 

Leia feels it, the exact moment that it truly dawns on Kylo he’s going to be a father, an uncontained, agonized howl through the force; Rey does too, if the wince and slow hiss of air between her teeth she makes is any indication.

She must have made some noise of her own, too. Finn is standing over the older woman, pulling back her eyelids to look at her pupils. “ _General_ ,” he says urgently, sound and vision swimming back into clarity, “General, are you alright? Can you hear me?”

“I- sorry, Finn, yes, I’m fine,” Leia breathes tightly, waving his hands off. She blinks at the tiny assembly she’s called, crowded around a small meeting table – Rey rubbing at her temples, Poe frowning with concern. Finn sits back down heavily, looking unconvinced. The only people, save Luke, that she’s trusted with the knowledge of Hux’s delicate condition.

“What _was_ that?” Rey grumbles. “You felt that, right?”

“Even Luke probably felt that,” Leia sighs, sinking back into her chair. “ _That_ was Kylo Ren finding out he’s going to be a father.”

Poe visibly pales. “He didn’t _know_?” he chokes out. “He killed that entire scout team on Yantooine when he found out they were looking for Hux, and that was him _not knowing_? What the hell is he going to do to the next mission we send out when he knows his kids are on the line?!”

Leia ignores the pilot and instead squeezes her eyes shut, trying to focus on the hysterical feelings Kylo is unintentionally leaking through the bond. Even now, all these years later, even when…Han…her son always seems to unconsciously reach out to her in moments of great distress. Hux had- he saw Hux, somewhere…didn’t know- woke up and- lost them again? With a jolt, Kylo seems to notice her there, or at least realize he’s projecting, and their bond snarls shut as it always does.

“Hux ran away from him,” Leia says slowly, brows creasing into a frown. She shakes her head.

“You thought it was Kylo he was running away from, before,” Rey muses. “But if Kylo actually _wants_ the children, then what’s the problem? Why run?”

“Snoke,” Finn says mournfully, eyes lighting up with understanding. “Either he didn’t sanction the mating, or he sanctioned it _much_ too enthusiastically for Hux’s liking.” A collective shudder runs through the group at the thought of all that entails.

“Regardless, we’re going to have to be more careful,” Poe sighs. “Kylo’s enough of a threat as it is. An _expecting_ Kylo? No way.” He looks guiltily towards Leia. “Uh. No offense, General.” But Leia isn’t really listening, frowning into the middle distance instead. She can’t help but sympathize with the other omega; she lost Ben to Snoke, after all. How can she possibly protect her grandchildren, when she couldn’t protect her son?

She only hopes that Hux will have more luck than she did.

 

*

 

He knows something is wrong as soon as he blinks awake. His first instinct is to press his palms to his stomach, feeling for signs of life and- ah, there, movement. Not that, then. It’s only after that particular anxiety is assuaged that Hux notices a familiar agony ripping clumsily through his mind.

“Kylo, get _out_!” Hux yells, curling around himself, head cradled in his hands, and where the fuck is Lump when he needs the bloody lizard, “get out get out _get out!”_ He has the vague feeling that Kylo is trying to say something, but it’s garbled and panicked and much too loud, making his vision swim and his stomach- oh, hells, not again.

The omega just about makes it to the bathroom – the sink, not the toilet, much too far right now – and the protein bar he managed to choke down earlier comes back up with a vengeance. “ _Idiot_ ,” Hux spits out, squinting desperately for any orange-brown blurs that might be the ysalamir. The assault on his mind suddenly quiets with the flick of a thin tongue against Hux’s ankle. “And where the fuck have you been?” Hux growls out to the lizard peering up curiously at its master. Lump’s only response is another ambivalent flick of its tongue.

Still, even lifting the ysalamir to its usual perch on his shoulders, there’s an itching in the back of his head. Hux sighs through his nose, shuffling back to bed and inelegantly manoeuvring his heavy stomach down onto the mattress. Kylo is…only going to get worse, knowing the alpha’s usual dogged determination, if he doesn’t at least respond in some way. And maybe- maybe he should hear Kylo out, at least, it seems only fair after slamming his skull against tarmac yesterday…

With his teeth set, Hux pushes Lump to the other side of the bed.

The flood of foreign feelings returns at once, but they’re softer now, somehow apologetic. If he concentrates, he can almost make out- like trying to hear one person in a crowd of hundreds, unrelated snippets of Kylo’s thoughts. _Hux, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ , in one place, and _didn’t mean to hurt you, didn’t mean to make you throw up_ in another at the same time. Hux hisses, pressing his fingers up against his temples, and the presence curls up on itself further still, until only a handful of Kylos are speaking at once rather than a hundred.

 _Please_ , _talk to me,_ at the same time as _tell me why you ran, why, why,_ and _let me find you, where are you,_ along with _come to me, please, mine, mine, mine_. It’s tempting to reply. It’s strangely comforting, having Kylo there in his head again, when his maelstrom of thoughts isn’t turning Hux’s own mind inside out, and the twins seem to shift contentedly again in reaction to their sire’s presence.

But still, he keeps his guard up; Snoke could be listening.

 _Hux? Hux?_ , Kylo’s voice murmurs as if underwater, and _are you there?_ , and the endless mantra of _please, please, my omega, my family, please, please_. The alpha’s presence twists with frustration and sorrow, and it’s painful – not the roiling headache from minutes ago, but a deep ache responding in his heart. _Why, just tell me why, Hux, Hux, **Hux** -_

“Snoke,” the omega sighs out on a breath, finally, apologetically, before tugging Lump back to his chest. He shivers as he curls around the confused ysalamir, who _meeps_ with protest again at the manhandling but grudgingly settles nonetheless. Maybe- maybe tomorrow, he’ll let Kylo in again. Maybe…maybe Kylo will understand.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh you guys, [look at this amazing art bona-mana did for this fic!!](http://bona-mana.tumblr.com/post/146693960604/)

Hoth is freezing.

It’s not the most hospitable of places to make his tenth nest, but the caved-in remains of the old Rebellion base there make an easier time of it than starting something from scratch. He’s over six months pregnant now and Hux is rapidly losing the will to do anything but eat and sleep.

Unfortunately, Kylo Ren’s discovery that Hux is carrying his progeny means that there’s no chance of resting in any one place for too long. If he thought Organa’s weak attempts at contacting him through their connection were hard to push away, keeping Kylo from barrelling into his mind from all corners of the galaxy is near impossible. It seems only direct contact with Lump will quiet the presence of the alpha in his head, so he’s taken to strapping the ysalamir to his back at most hours of the day. He’d considered going back to Myrkr in search of another ysalamir, to have one on each shoulder – perhaps that would be enough to keep Kylo out completely – but Lump is heavy enough as it is, and his back is already constantly protesting the weight of the ever-growing twins in his stomach. He has an awful feeling that they’re going to be big like their sire – the thought of giving birth to them with his narrow hips fills him with dread.

He turns the heating up in his nest as far as he dares, lights a fire in a makeshift stove too. Tomorrow he needs to start thinking about returning to his older locations, securing them and adding in the supplies MD-W7 suggested: diapers, formula, baby clothes, cribs. How appallingly domestic, Hux thinks. Parenthood was never high on his list of life ambitions, and yet that’s all the next fifteen odd years have in store for him. He waits for the thought of leaving the twins with Snoke to seem appealing, but it never does.

Enough. Sleep. With a sigh, he gives the ysalamir’s belly a fond scritch; he’s taken to holding the unfortunate lizard in his arms like a baby, with the vague justification of practicing for the twins. Lump doesn’t seem to mind, at least, flicking his tongue out contentedly at the bellyrubs.

Since bumping into Kylo a few weeks ago, he’s been allowing the alpha into his mind once a day, sometimes ignoring him, sometimes giving him the barest of responses, if he’s in a good enough mood. A dangerous indulgence, should Snoke be listening in. But it’s late in the evening and he’s run out of willpower to keep his mate out, so he lays himself down awkwardly onto his side in the foldaway bed piled with blankets; no sooner than the ysalamir slithers away does- _Hux_ , _Hux please_ , and _Answer me_ , and _Where are you_?

Ah, there it is. Kylo’s nightly nonsensical litany of pleading and vague threats floods into his head. Where Organa tends to speak in precise, short bursts, Kylo’s brief connections to him are a constant, fragmented onslaught. Still, if the omega is quite honest with himself, he’s tired and hormonal and lonely and he could do with a bit of Kylo begging to lift his mood tonight.

 _I would never hurt you or the pups, I swear it_ , Kylo presses miserably, at the same time as he leaks through hurt and anger and betrayal and _they’re mine, they’re mine, you’re mine_ , _you’re mine, come back to me, come back to me_.

“You’re making me dizzy,” Hux complains imperiously. “At least your mother has the decency to speak one coherent sentence at a time to me,” and oh, that’s a low blow, to let Kylo know that the twins’ grandmother has a connection too, but it certainly hits the mark when Kylo’s thread hits back with a wordless, possessive fury. Hux smirks with satisfaction, feeling, for just a moment, like he’s back on the Finalizer and everything is normal.

 _I’ll mark you,_ Kylo hisses, and _I’ll make you mine forever,_ seductive in its danger, but simultaneously, softly, _I’ll protect you_ , and _my precious family_.

“Never,” Hux sighs contentedly, only half meaning it.

Kylo floods Hux’s mind with memories of the twins’ conception, disorienting in the way Hux suddenly sees himself from Kylo’s point of view, skin flushed and sweaty, back arched erotically and his slick hole stretched obscenely around the alpha’s cock. He sees himself baring his neck submissively, can almost feel the longing ache in Kylo’s jaw to clamp down hard over his scent gland and mark him permanently.

“Stop,” Hux whines, shuddering alone in his bed and struggling to block out the visions. He’s too tired and uncomfortable for this, he doesn’t want to remember right now.

The alpha relents. _You can have that again_ , Kylo tries, as well as _I’ll take care of you_ , and _my omega_.

“Not yours,” Hux grumbles into his pillow. “Manipulative bastard, let me sleep. I’ll drop dead from exhaustion before they’re even born at this rate.”

The terror that Kylo responds with to that thought is unexpected. The hurt and despair at Hux’s constant rejection that follows it less so, a constant stream of _why, why, why, why_ almost wailing in his mind.

“Because everything you Skywalkers touch goes to hell!!” Hux finally roars out loud, weeks of biting back the words on his tongue forcing the sound to echo harshly around the icy chamber, and the presence intruding on his mind recoils as if struck. The omega can’t help but soften his next words. “Kylo, you- you were an amazing fuck, you’ll sire powerful, healthy pups, but you…I can’t let you be their father.”

 _That’s not your choice to make_ , Kylo threatens, a single, surprisingly coherent response.

“I told you. Snoke will take them from us,” Hux whispers, and the oppressive danger crowding his mind pulls back into something sorrowful. “You were always meant to be his weapon, Kylo. You’re made for violence, not for family. He’ll take them and make them the same. I won’t allow it.”

 _I won’t allow it either_ , Kylo repeats, and Hux frowns. The alpha pushes into his mind almost painfully, presence so large and overwhelming and _there_ that it makes the omega’s head spin. _This isn’t about Snoke anymore_ , and _us, this is ours_ , at the same time as _you can’t stop me_ , and _I’ll kill anyone that comes near us_ , and again, louder than all the rest of it, _mine_.

And quieter, almost so faint that if Kylo wasn’t pushing himself so forcefully into Hux’s mind it wouldn’t be heard at all, _I’ll kill Snoke if he tries_.

For the first time since the alpha discovered his impending fatherhood, it’s Kylo who severs the connection, leaving the omega’s mind with an abruptness that makes him flinch. The twins kick inside of him as if in protest at the sudden loss of their sire’s presence in the force.

“Hush,” Hux says distantly, more to himself as he moves his hands to wrap comfortingly around his heavy stomach, “your sire just wanted to have the last word, that’s all.” It’s not very convincing. If he presses his nose to the new cloak he stole from Kylo and cries himself to sleep that night, then…well.

It’s just the hormones.

 

*

 

_Kylo sighs contentedly, spooned against Hux with his nose buried in soft, sex-mussed hair. His knot is starting to loosen, but he doesn’t want to pull out of the omega’s warm heat, not just yet. It’s getting harder to ignore the smaller man twitching restlessly underneath him, though._

_“Stop,” he grumbles, pulling Hux against him tighter. “I’m not done with you.”_

_Hux huffs with amusement, peering back over his shoulder to try and meet the alpha’s eyes. “My heat’s not over yet, you know,” he smirks. “You’ll have your wicked way with me again soon enough.”_

_“Mmm,” Kylo purrs, leaning forward to lick a lazy, wet stripe up Hux’s neck to just under his jaw, murmuring against his overheated skin. “Will you beg me for it?”_

_“Maybe,” Hux concedes sweetly. “If you let me sit up and have a smoke.”_

_Kylo snorts, but he’s soft enough now that his dick slips out of the omega easily, his cum following out messily with nothing left to dam the flow. Hux shivers at the feeling, drawing his knees up to his chest with a pleased sigh. Kylo stretches one lazy hand towards the dresser, floating the omega’s cigarra case and lighter over to the bed._

_“I shouldn’t let you have those,” he says lightly, rolling onto his back to stretch out his limbs like a large, sated feline. “Those cigarras will kill you one day.”_

_Hux laughs, taking a long, easy drag of one. “What an appalling alpha you are, letting me put myself in danger,” he teases._

_“Of course,” Kylo smirks. “You’d never be in bed with me if I wanted to keep you out of harm’s way.” He neglects to add that, in truth, he’d give Hux anything his heart desired right now, looking so pretty and fucked out, with the imprints of Kylo’s teeth all along his shoulders._

_“Lucky little me,” Hux drawls sarcastically around a ring of smoke, but he presses himself up against Kylo’s side anyway, offering the cigarra up to him. Kylo shakes his head. He’ll only put up with the things around Hux. Sentimental, he chides himself. The omega shrugs, and Kylo levitates the ashtray over to rest on his sternum for Hux magnanimously._

_The red-haired man gives him an appraising, considering gaze for a while as he finishes his cigarra. “The other omegas on board talk about you, you know,” he comments vaguely after a while._

_“Oh?” Kylo arches an eyebrow lazily. “You have competition, then?”_

_Hux smacks at his chest half-heartedly. “Hardly,” he snorts, stubbing out his cigarra in the ashtray on Kylo’s chest. The alpha waves it back towards the dresser. “The general consensus is that you’d be a selfish lover, and much too rough with your knot. That you’d be a poor choice in mate, that you’d sow your seed and leave,” he continues._

_“Is that so,” Kylo replies. The thought amuses him greatly, that the crew’s fear of him extends even to this._

_“You’re surprisingly sweet in bed, Knight of Ren,” Hux sighs happily, nuzzling against his side. “You are too rough, but- well. I suppose you’ve gathered that I rather like it that way.”_

_“Then next time I will use my nails and teeth,” Kylo counters, dragging the tips of his nails down Hux’s back lightly, pointedly. “Do tell me how sweet I am again when you’re bleeding.” Hux scoffs, rolling away, but Kylo rolls after him, pinning the omega down on the bed. “And I would be an exceptional mate, I’ll have you know,” he laughs low into Hux’s ear. “I’d keep you well-fucked and have you pregnant all the time. I’d hide you somewhere nice, keep you and our brood safe.”_

_“Mmm,” Hux smiles, shifting his hips up languidly to grind against Kylo’s stirring cock. “A whole litter of miniature Kylo Rens. What an awful thought.”_

_The scent of fresh slick between his legs betrays him._

*

 

Alone in his shuttle, Kylo Ren despairs.

He hasn’t tried to contact Hux again since that night, two weeks ago now. No, that’s a lie…he brushes against their connection briefly each day, as Hux seems to allow him to, just to make sure the omega carrying his entire family on the line is still safe and sound, but he’s certainly not speaking to him.

 _Petty_ , he thinks miserably. _This childishness is why he thinks you’re not fit to be their sire_.

He’s glad that he took the cloak off when he went on his rampage through the service station, pulling it towards him now to bury his face in the omega’s scent. It’s fading already, but there’s instinctive comfort in it anyway. On one hand, Hux has a point. His family is a mess, frankly, their powers causing chaos on both sides of the force, and neither Anakin, Luke nor Han have shown themselves to be particularly adept at fatherhood. Vader never even sensed his twins, Han was only around sporadically, and Luke’s idea of protecting Rey from Kylo’s knights was to abandon her on Jakku.

But he wants so badly to _try_. That Hux would refuse him the chance cuts him deeply. If Snoke had not been so angry about Hux running away, he would have said that _this_ was Kylo’s punishment, that the Supreme Leader had foreseen the omega’s rejection. Truly, he would throw his life with Snoke away to help Hux raise their children, to show them the ways of the force and shape them into powerful wielders of it in his own way.

But that, too, is exactly what Hux wants to avoid. He supposes he can’t entirely blame Hux for not wanting his pups to follow in the Skywalker line’s footsteps. His hesitations about the force are probably why he’s been avoiding the Resistance just as much as Snoke. He wonders if Hux ever worries about the twins growing up, only to stray to the light side and kill their own sire, as Luke had (yes, he blames him, even if it was only indirectly). It would be sweet of him to worry about such a thing…so probably not, then. Still, he’s doing better than Vader – he will actually know that his twins are out there, and for better or worse he refuses to let them be apart. He will surpass Luke and Han in this, too.

Suddenly Kylo feels their connection flare to life again. It must be night wherever Hux is – he seems to take off the ysalamir to sleep.

Fuck it.

“Hux,” he tries gently. Their bond hums in acknowledgement, but the omega sends no response otherwise. “I’m sorry,” Kylo says, delicately nudging contrition and sorrow Hux’s way. Still no reply other than a sense of his words and feelings having found their intended destination. “I needed to think some things through.”

 _Kylo Ren, thinking? How novel_ , Hux finally responds icily. The alpha elects to let that one slide, instead relieved to hear the omega in his mind again.

“I miss you,” Kylo says, amused at the startled twang that gets him. He frowns as the connection opens a little more, probably unintentionally. “Your back hurts, I can sense it like this. Are they heavy?”

 _Very_ , Hux agrees, still seeming a little perturbed by the turn of conversation. _And getting heavier_.

“I would massage your back if I were there,” Kylo says earnestly. “Rub my thumbs along your spine. Would that help?”

 _Is this your latest ploy for getting my location out of me?_ Hux asks, but there’s amusement there now. _Give it another week and it may actually work, this is agony_.

Concerning, Kylo thinks with a frown. “Tell me how I can help you,” he demands instead. “Let me prove myself to you, Hux. Even if you don’t want me there right now, there must be something you three need.”

The connection falters, as if Hux isn’t sure whether to slam him out or welcome him further in. _You know who I would have you kill_ , Hux says vaguely after a while, and it’s Kylo’s turn to hesitate. He’s sure that Snoke already suspects that this situation has irreparably skewed his loyalties; perhaps it’s only a matter of time before things will come to that anyway. He pushes these musings wordlessly at Hux, not yet ready to speak them aloud, and there’s a comforting thrum of acceptance from the omega’s end.

 _If not that, then perhaps there is one thing you could do for me_ , Hux allows slowly.

“Anything,” Kylo says immediately.

 _Keep the Resistance and the First Order off my trail for a while?_ Hux asks hesitantly. _I’m so…I need to rest, Kylo. I can’t keep moving around like this. Give them a false lead, tell them you can sense me somewhere, anything._

“Will you at least tell me what sector of the galaxy to keep them away from?” he tries, and though Hux broadcasts annoyance, Kylo feels him considering it.

 _Fine_ , Hux grumbles. _Adari system_. Kylo gets a vague impression through the bond of two alien smugglers that have been ferrying Hux around occasionally, one of them Adarian, one tall enough to be a Gungan.

“I’ll throw them off,” Kylo agrees solemnly. “No more than four weeks though. Even I want you moving again after that, if you won’t have me there to protect you.”

 _Agreed_. _Lead them to the Adari system in three, then_ , Hux replies, seeming pleased.

Reluctant to let this peace between them go, Kylo tries his luck further. “Do you know their sexes? Their designations?” he asks breathlessly. “Have you named them?”

 _No, but…_ Hux hesitates. _I have these dreams, sometimes. Impressions. Like your force visions._ He clumsily attempts to send something through the bond other than words, an image of- Kylo inhales sharply, the vision knocking the wind out of him. Two dark-haired toddlers curled together in a crib, a little plush stormtrooper shared between them. Part of him is a little disappointed that neither of them is a redhead like Hux – he tells the omega so, and the bond thrums with something like laughter. _Recessive genes will do that_ , Hux says.

“Name one each?” Kylo presses.

 _Absolutely not, you’ll call them something ridiculous like Vader_ , Hux scoffs. _But…I suppose I will run my choices past you_.

“Cruel, my darling,” Kylo sighs. It was worth a shot. The discordant feelings of confusion and faint pleasure at the endearment brighten his mood at least. “Sleep now, you have three weeks to rest,” he commands, letting the protective alpha in him take over. “I’ll bother you again tomorrow.”

 _Oh, what joy_ , Hux snorts, but there’s a feeling of fondness that accompanies the derision, before the omega slips easily into unconsciousness, worn out.

It’s a start.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we're in the home run now guys...estimating about 3 chapters left after this one!

Hux’s fear that Kylo would be uninterested in being a father proves to have been completely unfounded. He supposes he should really have expected from the man with almost legendary daddy issues that he’d want to be a good sire. The alpha pesters him nightly, demanding updates on their health and safety, begging to be allowed nearer and musing on their future spawn’s force abilities sentimentally. It’s somewhat surprising to Hux that the knight stayed true to his word and kept away for three blessed weeks, before he left Adari I for Endor. (It occurs to him that many of his nest locations have unconsciously been places he knows the Skywalkers have visited before – he hopes no one else spots the pattern. It feels an awful lot like the force is playing a cruel joke on him.)

Endor is pleasant enough, and though he tries to avoid them, the local population of furry creatures seem excited to see a human. They even help him build his eleventh nest, finding a secluded spot in the forest to construct a low-lying mud house. He thinks perhaps he might like to come back here to give birth. Kylo had asked him the night before what his plans surrounding his labour were; he had, of course, adamantly insisted on being there to help when the time comes, loudly proclaiming it too dangerous for Hux to go it alone with just a droid, despite not having the faintest clue how to deliver a baby. A tempting thought, though, to have the alpha there to comfort him.

His hormones must be getting the better of him.

His hormones are _definitely_ getting the better of him. Hux is weeping and sniffling and hadn’t even noticed. For fuck’s sake. If the First Order could see him now, he thinks miserably, and that just makes him cry harder.

He scares Kylo half to death by ripping Lump off his shoulders and yanking the connection open in the middle of the day. The nonsensical, irritating stream of _what happened?_ and _are you okay?_ and _the twins?_ and _where are you?_ and _let me be there with you_ starts up instantly.

“Shut up!” Hux sobs loudly on the forest floor, startling a passing Ewok. He can’t bring himself to feel apologetic about it, so he starts shouting at Kylo instead. “I’m fucking miserable and hormonal and just- just shut up and be there for me! This is all your fault you bastard, you _and_ your raging asshole of a master!!”

There’s a confused pause in their connection before… _Ewok?_ Oh, hells. That had slipped through. _Are you on Endor?_

“You come within a light-year of this star system and I will _end_ you, Kylo Ren,” Hux threatens. It’s probably not very effective with puffy eyes and snot dripping down his face. He half expects Kylo to laugh at him. Failing that, some overdramatic worrying and the feeling of the knight setting a course for Endor immediately. More frightening, the idea that he would be repellent to the alpha in this sorry, emotional state.

But instead, Hux’s mind is suddenly flooded with a memory from Kylo’s point of view: he sees himself asleep in Kylo’s arms, face still lightly flushed from their exertions and utterly fucked-out and sated. _Beautiful_ , past Kylo thinks, running his wide hands lightly over Hux’s pale, bony shoulders. The moment is peaceful, calming, if confusing to Hux in the third person, and he feels his tears in the present subside.

 _Still beautiful_ , present Kylo whispers as Hux comes back to himself in the forest.

“Hardly,” Hux sniffles, wiping his runny nose on the back of his hand inelegantly. The Ewok from before is peering curiously at him from behind a rock.

Their connection seems to growl in his ear before Kylo’s voice returns. _Don’t you know what I wanted to do to you when I saw you on that service planet?_ He rumbles through the force, _you smelled so good; I could have marked you there and then. I wanted to take you back to my ship and fuck you, run my hands over the swell of your stomach, feel the lives we’ve made kicking from inside and out._

“I feel like that should disgust me but instead I’m vaguely horny,” Hux replies, wrinkling his nose.

 _Be mine_ , Kylo begs amorously again, utterly ruining Hux’s arousal and killing the mood in one fell swoop. _There. Better?_ Shit. Kylo’s on to him. _You’re not hiding a thing right now. You really are hormonal_. Fuck.

“I wasn’t _opposed_ to being turned on,” Hux huffs.

 _No, but you won’t let me be there to take care of you,_ Kylo replies easily. _If you’re so insistent on giving me blue balls it’s only fair I return the favour_. Fucking typical, Hux thinks irritably, and their connection ripples with amusement.

 

*

 

The peace between them doesn’t last; it never does.

Travelling to Dagobah at eight months pregnant is a mistake, and not just because Dagobah is a humid, insect-infested swamp of a planet. Hux doesn’t mean to stay there for long, a week or so at most; the shack he’d built there was one of his earlier ones and in need of baby supplies that he’d been too distracted to remember to include at the time. Stepping off his shuttle, he’s in a foul mood already – his back continues to be agony and attempting to carry even a small crate of baby things is doing nothing to help. He’s genuinely beginning to consider summoning Kylo to his side just for the promise of back-rubs, Snoke be damned.

He finds himself surrounded before he’s barely even stepped off the boarding ramp.

Five Resistance fighters have been lying in wait for him, and – more annoying to him than anything else at this moment – residing in his nest in the meantime, he sees over the one in front of him’s shoulder, the smoke of a fire billowing from the chimney.

“General Hux,” a humanoid creature with an extended, furry jaw announces itself, stepping in front of him. “We are under orders from General Leia Organa to bring you to the Resistance.” He ignores them in favour of curling his lip in a sneer at the men around him. They’re not holding blasters, but they are, laughably, spreading a net between them and trying to close in as if Hux is some cornered animal that’s escaped a zoo. He feels, distantly, offended. He may be eight months pregnant, but he wasn’t the highest-ranking General of the First Order for nothing. Fine; underestimate me at your peril, he thinks sourly.

Ever thankful for Kylo’s cloak, Hux rips his concealed blaster out from underneath it and shoots the leader in the face point blank, blue blood splattering out onto the swamp floor behind him.

The remaining four draw out their weapons, but between the net, and, Hux assumes, orders from Organa not to harm him, they hesitate enough for him to pick three of them off easily, even at such a close range. The last makes a valiant attempt at grabbing for his weapon, but only ultimately serves to make her death needlessly messy – she knocks Hux’s blaster up towards her chin and her blood splatters over him as the shot rips through her face.

How profoundly irritating.

Belatedly, Hux realizes his breathing is worryingly heavy and his ears are ringing, pulse pounding in his head and- oh. Lump was knocked off his shoulders at some point. That’s not his ears ringing, that’s Kylo, and the alpha is _pissed_. Hux isn’t sure whether he’s still too shaken to be able to comprehend what Kylo is trying to say to him or if his mate is too angry to be making any sense.

“Would you _give me a fucking minute_ , Kylo!” Hux yells to the swamp, collapsing onto his knees on the wet ground. The anger doesn’t recede, but the pounding in his head at least settles as Kylo stops trying to shout over their connection. “Fuck. _Shit._ ”

He feels himself calming after a few minutes, along with the cold, clammy feeling of soaked trousers returning to his aching legs where he kneels on the swamp floor. The alpha is still twitching restlessly in the back of his mind, and Hux instinctively wraps his arms around his stomach – he feels a kick back from one of the twins. Can’t be too bad, then.

 _There’s blood on your face_ , Kylo bursts in suddenly, desperate, unable to contain himself anymore.

“It’s not mine,” Hux says absently, raising one hand to feel at the red liquid there and coming away with…ugh. Possibly brain matter. The alpha, unfortunately, hears that thought.

Kylo speaks all his thoughts at once, _they could have killed you_ , and _you could have miscarried_ , _what if you’d gone into labour_ and _I’ll kill her I’ll kill them I’ll kill all of them_ , and _my precious family_ , on and on until Hux clutches at his head from the strain of it.

“ _Stop_ ,” Hux snaps through clenched teeth. “It’s fine, alright? They’re dead, we’re not hurt, they barely touched me. I’m not _helpless,_ Kylo. I took care of it.”

 _No, **you** stop_ , Kylo all but bellows over the bond. _Enough of this madness, Hux. I’m coming to you_.

“You’re bloody not-“ Hux starts to yell back, but the connection severs with a sickening jerk as Kylo shuts him out, refusing to listen to any more protests. Well, shit. The alpha had been so good about staying away lately, too. He levels a feeling of profound hatred at the faint bond he has with Organa before retrieving his ysalamir from where it’s gleefully slithered over to a tree.

Hux spares only the time to drag the Resistance corpses into his shack, and then he sets the entire thing on fire before getting the hell off of Dagobah.

 

*

 

She’s always known, in a theoretical sort of way, how powerful her son is. But Leia has never really _experienced_ it – only its repercussions, the trail of bodies and scars that follow in Kylo Ren’s wake. So when Kylo rips open their bond from his end for the first time in more than a decade, the sheer force of his power brings the General to her knees.

 _Call your people off_ , a thousand voices hiss at her malevolently, some sounding like screams, others an echoing bellow around her skull; she grips her head in her hands, trying desperately to stop the rattling of her teeth, the squeezing pressure in her eyeballs.

“B- _Kylo_ , stop!” she gasps out. Distantly, she’s aware of people fussing around her; she’d been walking with…Poe? Ackbar? She can’t remember, drowning in the flood of _could have killed them, could have miscarried, mine, my family, keep away, keep out, KEEP OUT, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill every one of you, I’ll kill you_.

“And what if we do leave you be!” Leia manages to shout against the current of foreign thoughts. “Will you fail them, like I failed you?!” The next onslaught of screaming, high-pitched and furious, nearly pushes her to black out (there are hands on her shoulders, someone is calling for a medic, or Luke, or Rey, for fuck’s sake get somebod _y_ -), _They’re mine, and mine alone,_ Kylo’s voice breaks through darkly, with a convinction that makes her ears ring.

And just like that, he’s gone, leaving his mother trembling and shaking on the floor, Ackbar and Poe looking down worriedly at her.

Later that day, the team on Dagobah miss their check in.

 

*

 

It never ceases to amaze Hux just how terribly skewed his priorities have become since the start of his pregnancy. For example, he should probably be concerned at just how close the Resistance came to capturing him. It should worry him deeply that they found his nest on Dagobah, and what if the others have been compromised, too? His supplies? His other ships? But that sort of danger, at least, is something that he’s accustomed to after spending his entire life in the First Order.

What _currently_ fills him with an absurd, illogical panic that has him choking back tears is the fact that the scuffle got blood and brain matter all over Kylo’s cloak.

“Come on, fuck, fuck,” he hisses as he picks desperately at the dried chunks stuck to the fabric. Washing it will mean losing the comforting scent of his unborn children’s sire – something he’s more than sure he will need when he goes into labour – but right now, all he can smell is the overpowering stench of some other alpha woman’s blood. “ _Fuck!_ ” he bellows, throwing the disgusting thing down.

Lump gives him a comforting flick of his tongue. He can’t afford to be without Lump on him at all times (even in the shower, to the ysalamir’s great displeasure) with Kylo well and truly on a rampage throughout the galaxy for him at this point; if he could only direct that chaotic energy towards getting rid of Snoke, the omega thinks with a sigh.

“You’re right,” Hux murmurs, reaching out to stroke a finger over Lump’s snout absently. “You’re right. Calm down. C’mon, think, _think_ …”

After a few deep, shaky breaths, Hux lays the cloak out flat on the floor.

There are a few sections of the cloak beyond saving, but larger patches in between them that managed to avoid the spray. First things first; get rid of the ruins. He digs through the ship’s utility box, coming up with a small vibroblade and a uniform repair kit dating back to the Clone Wars. Carefully, stain by stain, the omega rips the blade through the coarse material, until he’s left with something utterly unwearable, holes every which way, but finally smelling like the alpha again.

Hux takes malicious glee in spacing the cut-offs, glad to be rid of the stench. Calmer with that gone, he considers what remains of the tatty thing. For an absurd moment he considers attempting to turn it into baby clothes, but he’s never been much of a seamstress; he can do the few basic stitches taught in the Academy to pull a torn uniform back together and little else. Perhaps if he- yes, like that; he continues to methodically cut the remaining cloak apart until he’s left with a pile of material in squares of different sizes. Like a puzzle, he thinks, laying each piece out again on the floor, sniffing each carefully for any lingering traces of the wrong alpha.

There isn’t enough to make another cloak. A scarf, possibly. But maybe, if he lays it out sideways instead, like so…divides it once more in half… _there_. An instinctive, calm contentment blooms in his chest; two small blankets, one to wrap around each twin after the birth.

With neat, precise stitches, he sets to work patching them together. There’s a soothing, rhythmic quality to the work that gives him a chance to think clearly again, to plan; now is the time to finally put his nests to the test, hiding on ships in hyperspace until the drives need refuelling, bouncing between safe houses in the interim. Kylo was right – he could, conceivably, go into labour any day now. It would be a little premature, but the stress of being on the run and away from his children’s sire surely isn’t doing the three of them any good. Over and under, thread by thread. Only a few weeks left to go, now. He’s prepared for this. He has MD-W7 ready to go, he has Lump strapped around his shoulders, he has the supplies he needs. He only needs to keep on the move, to stay one step of ahead, and all will be well.

He has- not a force vision, exactly, while he works. He doesn’t see anything, nor does he feel any more connected to the force than he ever has, no particular spiritual link to the universe. It’s more like a dawning realization, a deep, unshakeable certainty, a truth Hux suddenly knows in his bones that becomes more real with every stitch:

The next time he sees Kylo, it will either be the last time, or he’ll never be rid of the alpha again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last bits of the story should be going up over the next few hours, I still have a little left to add to the epilogue and then it's done! I should probably note that I have never been pregnant or given birth so I have no idea what I'm talking about in this chapter, haha.

He comes to covered in blood. Again.

Kylo breathes a hot, furious breath of air through his nostrils, blinking away the red haze of fury; what did…yes, that’s right. Phasma refused his request for more stormtroopers, and he didn’t shoot the messenger so much as snap their neck and tear them to pieces in the middle of a cantina.

“Fuck,” Kylo hisses, looking down at himself, to the upturned, splintered tables and chairs around the bar. He hurries out of the abandoned cantina, shedding his dripping outer robes along the way to his personal ship. This is exactly why the First Order has been steering clear of him lately, ignoring his calls and unofficially distancing themselves from the alpha as much as they can. Even his Knights have been avoiding him; he’s going near feral with worry and despair, knowing his – and Hux _is_ his – pregnant mate is out there alone with every bounty hunter in the galaxy looking for leads on him, never mind the collected forces of the Resistance and the First Order. Never mind Snoke.

He’s running out of time.

The nine months are up, and he has just as little idea where his wayward omega is as the rest of the galaxy does. They’ve found four of Hux’s safe houses, out of how many, he doesn’t know – one in a truly appalling neighbourhood of Cloud City, the burnt ashes of what used to be the Dagobah hut, an apartment on Adari I and an old, abandoned farmhouse on Dantooine. He has a Knight posted near each, ready to pounce should Hux return. He can’t bring himself to stake out any of them on his own; the heavy scent of the omega that surrounds them is too heartbreaking to bear.

Kylo marches onto his ship with anxious steps, ignoring the mix of blood and mud caking the metal floors with dirty footprints for now, instead directing the engines to push the vessel out of the atmosphere. If he could just grab onto that brittle thread that bonds them again, pull the omega’s location from his mind-…but the bond has been closed, subdued for weeks, only the faintest presence of his loved ones reassuring him they’re still alive.

The alpha absently notices that everything around him is rattling. He really is losing it – both his control over the force _and_ his sanity.

He sighs and slopes towards the refresher. There’s little he can do but wait, for now, as unbearable as that is. At least there’s enough water on board for a hot shower; he steps under the spray and stands there numbly, letting it trickle down his body and wash away the blood and viscera of the day.

A ripple.

Kylo’s eyes snap open, blinking through the water running over his eyelashes. Something…he can feel it, tugging at him in the force, just the barest- then, just as suddenly, the bond with the omega comes back to life, tearing through his mind, but on the other end is only a tense silence. He’s about to push a questioning _hello?_ towards Hux when he feels it:

An agony that is not his own.

 

*

 

It starts small enough that Hux pays it no mind. He’s had cramps, now and then, throughout his pregnancy, and this one is no different. Then it comes again. And again, ten minutes later. And again, painful enough that he drops to the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, and… _ah, fuck_.

“Time to shine, MD-W7,” he calls hoarsely once the next contraction is over. The droid comes skidding into the cockpit of his second ship, fussing over the omega and barrelling him with a stream of options and information and impromptu scan readings. The small droid tries to get him to eat while he considers his position in space; he’d been on his way to the nest on Dantooine, a lovely little farmhouse that had been abandoned for years before he stumbled into it, but the planet is on the opposite side of the galaxy and more than three days away, even by lightspeed. He’d really rather give birth on solid ground where there isn’t the rare chance of a catastrophic ship failure to add to everything else that could go wrong, and the closest nest is-

…Endor. Hux shakes his head disbelievingly. Sure, _now_ the force takes pity on him.

Two and a half hours to reach the forest moon, but he’s read the maternity guides back to front five times each by this point – plenty of time to get there before the more brutal contractions get under way. Between the pangs of discomfort, he gathers all the things he thinks he’ll need – more water, fresh food picked up at his last stop, pillows…the blankets he made with Kylo’s cloak. He presses his face against the two of them when the next contraction hits, breathing in deeply, huffing in whatever comfort the alpha’s scent can provide his addled body. It’s working, filling his head with a pleasant buzz to counteract the cramps when-

“Oh!” MD-W7 suddenly squeaks. Hux follows the line of her optics downwards, where- “Master, your waters have broken!” Where a damp patch is rapidly forming between his thighs.

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. This is fine. This is _normal_. They’re nearly there.

Hux spends the remainder of the journey submitting himself to the droid’s attentions, humouring her by attempting to eat his way through the constant stream of fruit, cereal and blue yoghurt she presents him with, and pacing back and forth. This is fine. This is fine.

The contractions are still mild enough when they finally touch down on Endor, just as dusk is falling, that he can stumble his way through the forest to the hut, save for one or two breaks to lean against trees and curse bitterly between his teeth. The droid toddles in agitated circles around him, loudly disapproving of Hux’s choice to leave the sanitary ship, while Lump thankfully seems to be doing its best to stay quiet and still over his shoulders.

The hut is, miraculously, just as he left it. A few Ewoks tagged along at some point through his journey into the forest, summoned by his swearing, now peering curiously from outside the door at the human pacing in slow, steady circles through the round structure. As the sun sets, one particularly charitable soul eventually works up the courage to waddle in and light a fire for him before darting back out again. Every successive contraction gets worse and worse, but the omega has a feeling that as soon as he collapses onto the bed, he won’t be able to summon the strength to get back up; best to get as much standing in now as he can, he reasons.

Again. Hux wails loudly into the night; the gathered Ewoks scatter, startled.

He wants- fuck, he wants Kylo. The thought tears a frustrated sob out of him against his will. He was a _general_ , he should be stronger than this. He wants to deck the alpha in the face for breeding him in the first place. He wants to be smothered in kisses. He wants to shout at Kylo and curse his entire stupid bloodline. He wants the alpha’s big hands rubbing his back. He wants-

He _really_ wants MD-W7 to stop talking.

The droid keeps nattering pleasantries at him, pre-programmed encouragements that just make him more annoyed. “Intervals of five minutes between your contractions now, Master, you’re doing splendidly!” she chirps cheerily, before attempting to coerce him into bed again. He distracts himself with thoughts of taking the droid apart piece by piece, wondering what he could rebuild with the components instead – maybe a massage droid, that would be _FUCK fuck fuck_ , no, no, bed now, bed now.

He lies back against the pile of pillows, breathing raggedly while the droid pokes and prods at him. Somewhere through the haze of pain he hears MD saying something about not being dilated enough just yet and oh _god_ , there’s hours left of this, he wants Kylo, Kylo, _Kylo_ -

_Hux?_

He writhes against the sheets with the next contraction; shit, he must be delirious with the pain, he- _Hux, what’s happening?_ and _are you okay?_ and _the twins?_ , a constant, familiar stream, _darling, my darling, where are you?_ Oh. Lump has committed high treason, hiding under a pillow.

“K-Kylo, they’re coming,” Hux chokes out to the ceiling, before his body twists violently onto its side with the next wave of it.

 _I’m here_ , Kylo responds, flooding the bond with a heady mixture of soothing reassurance and his own barely disguised panic, a flood of fifty questions at once, _what can I do? How can I help? What do you need?_

“I don’t _know_ ,” Hux moans as the pain finally releases him, “fuck, this hurts, if I could bottle this and sell it as torture…” He hates that he feels better already with the alpha’s presence there in his mind. His chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath, curling in on himself pathetically. “Talk to me, distract me, anything,” he begs.

Kylo is silent for a moment, before- another memory, looking at his own face through the visor of Kylo’s mask; the leather knuckles of the alpha’s gloves brushing soothingly over Hux’s cheekbones. He watches his own eyelashes flutter closed in pleasure, so this must have been…just before the heat, not after, when his eyes were downcast and stoic as he watched Kylo leave.

Another contraction knocks him out of the memory, and he can distantly feel Kylo double over at the pain leaking through the bond. ( _Good_ , part of him thinks childishly.) The alpha murmurs not-quite words through it, and _oh_ , this is better, like his mind is in a different place to his body, floating towards Kylo instead of-

 _Your droid is trying to get you to drink some water_ , the alpha interrupts as the pain dies down again, and, oh – he’s right, MD-W7 is making noises at him, waving a bottle around. _Drink_ , Kylo soothes, nudging a memory of having to get Hux to do the same thing during the height of his heat, how he’d laughed at Hux for being more interested in the alpha’s fingers around the cup than the water inside of it. They spend what feels to Hux like days like that (but MD later informs him is a matter of hours), alternating between Kylo soothing the omega with sweet memories and nonsensical reassurances and wrenching bouts of pain in which Hux swings wildly between cussing the alpha out and begging his mate to come for him, while the droid periodically checks vitals and dilation.

The omega finds himself with his knees on the floor and his elbows on the bed when MD-W7 finally declares him ready to push. Hux whimpers, reaching about blindly for-

_…You made baby blankets with my cloak?_

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Kylo Ren,” Hux grits out before- _ah_ \- he presses his face hard into mattress, teeth clamped around the blankets. Come on, come _on_ , he can- no he really can’t, oh fuck, when the bond suddenly floods with something new, like borrowed strength, warm and comforting and bright and _push_ and _now_ and _push_ , Hux yelling loud enough to wake the whole forest, until-

Their first daughter cries.

MD-W7 lays the tiny girl on the mattress in front of Hux, and… “Oh! She has your ears!” he breathes, before an instinct he didn’t even know he had pushes the omega forward to lick his first pup clean while the droid clamps and cuts the umbilical cord. He only gets about halfway through his attentions before the contractions return; somehow the second go is worse, painful in a way that makes spots dance across his vision and something echo hollow and empty in his chest, body already exhausted and spent.

Their second daughter finally cries out, twenty minutes after the first.

Hux laughs with delirious relief as MD presents him with the other baby. “Kylo, they’re identical, oh, oh hell, they both have your…your…Kylo?”

The cords are cut; the bond is gone.

He cleans the pups through the salt of his tears. Hux had known, for months really, that he was just an accessory to the force bond between Kylo and his bloodline, but for it to disappear now…he whispers secrets and promises against the skin of his newborns, praying to things he's never believed in that the alpha can hear them still. He swaddles them in their sire’s scent and tries, desperately, to believe this is for the best.

 

*

 

Kylo arrives, three weeks later, looking like a madman. His eyes are bloodshot and ringed with bruises, his hair is dirty and tangled, his skin is pale and sallow. He hasn’t slept in days. His fingers tremble.

“Master,” Kylo Ren rasps miserably, dropping down to his knees on the cold stone, “I come to you for guidance.”

It’s been months since he’s set foot in the Supreme Leader’s citadel; the last time he’d been in this same throne room, Snoke had ordered him to track down and bring back Hux. They’ve never directly discussed the pregnancy, or the true punishment for Starkiller, the price he expects the Knight to pay. The gnarled being narrows his piercing eyes at his apprentice, suspicious.

“The umbilical cords have been cut,” Kylo continues, turning his face up to look despairingly at his Master. “I can no longer sense Hux, and the children are too young to find in the force. I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to find and bring them back to you.”

Something eases in Snoke’s expression, shifting to steeple his fingers on his throne. Kylo would surely not be so foolish as to return with disloyalty in his heart; he brushes briefly against his apprentice’s mind, dipping into the howling desperation he finds there.

“It will be harder for him to move around, now the children are born,” Snoke muses. “He will be exhausted from the birth. Move quickly, and you will catch them.” Kylo gazes up at him reverently, something adoring in his eyes, and the Supreme Leader smirks at the blind devotion at his feet. “You know what you must do now,” he rumbles.

“Yes,” Kylo Ren smiles beatifically, and his charade of shaking fingers stills.

He ignites his lightsaber.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter notes at the end this time!)

It takes him four days and several near misses of spears and catapults to pry the omega’s location out of the native population of Ewoks on Endor. Honestly, he’d set them all on fire if it wouldn’t alert Hux to his presence – their minds are surprisingly resistant to his interrogation techniques, perhaps because they’re so idiotically _empty_. In the end, a grey ewok with big, blunt teeth draws him a crude map to Hux’s safehouse willingly, if only to get the tall, sulky human away from their village.

He feels the scope of a rifle trained on him long before he actually sees it. Hux has been expecting him; the omega pulls the trigger, a warning shot whistling right by Kylo’s ear, close enough to feel the heat of it on his skin.

“I did warn you it wouldn’t be set to stun next time,” Hux calls from a distance.

Kylo keeps walking. He should make some sort of attempt at disarming the omega. He should, perhaps, have worn his helmet after all. Possibly, he should duck. Instead, all rational thought goes out the window when Kylo finally spots Hux between the trees, a cradleboard slung over his omega’s back. Something in him soars at the sight of it, and he almost stumbles on his next step forward. The ysalamir is nowhere to be seen, but he can feel it nearby, that curious lack of the force that bubbles around Hux.

Hux pulls the trigger again, and this time the shot grazes his ear, the smell of singed hair and skin filling Kylo’s nose.

“Get the _fuck_ away from us or the next one’s going through your skull,” Hux says coldly, reloading in one practiced motion.

Kylo raises his hands in surrender. He stops about ten metres from his mate. Hux could easily kill him point blank from where he stands, if he wanted to; but the omega hesitates, aim wavering. The alpha takes the opportunity to study him – the exhausted slump of Hux’s usually straight back, the dark purple bags under his eyes, gaunt cheeks and hair grown long enough to graze the omega’s jaw. Kylo imagines that he must look equally awful; Hux’s hands tremble ever so slightly around their grip on the rifle.

Wordlessly, Kylo reaches into his pack, throwing its treasure out onto the forest floor between them, and the omega’s breath catches.

The decapitated head of Snoke rolls towards him.

“I did it for you,” Kylo says softly. “I had to, they- they’re _mine_ , Hux, please. At least let me see them.”

Hux makes a frustrated noise in his throat, rifle jerking in his shaking hands. This moment is the crossroads he felt coming, he can feel it now; either the last time, or forever.

“You’re going to fuck _everything_ up,” Hux hisses unhappily from behind his rifle, a tremor in his voice. He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince himself or Kylo at this point. He would be shouting if he didn’t desperately want the pups bundled against his back to stay asleep. “You Skywalkers always _do_. Now I’m going to have to move planet _again,_ asshole, how the fuck am I meant to get two newborns off planet by myself?”

“You don’t have to do a damn thing by yourself!!” Kylo shouts insistently. “I’m their _sire_ , Hux, just let me-“

The argument is interrupted by a cranky wailing from behind Hux, the noise swiftly doubling as the other twin joins in. Kylo wants to- he needs to- those are his pups crying, _his_ -

“Look what you’ve done!” Hux snaps, the crying only getting louder as he does so. He looks like he might cry at any moment himself – from frustration, anger, or exhaustion, Kylo isn’t sure which. “Do you know how fucking hard it is to get these two to sleep at the same time, Kylo? _Do you_?”

“You’ve hardly given me the opportunity to know!” Kylo yells back, storming steadily towards the omega. He grabs the barrel of the rifle and places the muzzle hard against his forehead. “If you won’t let me help you then just shoot me now, alright? Shoot me, do it.” He’s shaking. They both are. “Do it,” Kylo whispers again, “because I can’t live like this, knowing the three of you are out there without me. I can’t- I’m going _mad_ , Hux, I haven’t slept properly in months, I...”

The twins are still crying. The tears gathered in the omega’s eyes finally spill over, silently.

“Hux,” Kylo says softly, “look at you. You’re exhausted. You’re shaking from it. Let me help you. Let me watch them while you get some sleep.” He drops the barrel of the rifle to stretch his arm forward, brushing his fingertips against the omega’s damp cheeks. “Snoke is gone, it’s just us now. I won’t take them from you. I won’t take them anywhere without taking you, too,” Kylo murmurs solemnly, tentatively stepping forward into Hux’s space and cupping the omega’s face in one hand. So near now that his comforting, familiar scent eases something in the alpha that’s been off-kilter for months. “I promise.”

Hux closes his eyes and sighs. The last time, or forever.

“I’m so tired, Kylo,” Hux whispers.

He lowers the rifle.

“You win.”

The omega finds himself dragged into the alpha’s arms, flooded with Kylo’s rich scent as the force-user presses desperate kisses to the red hair in front of him. He melts bonelessly against the hold, and the twins crying seems to ease as the tension in their carrier’s body dissipates, the omega tipping his face up to meet Kylo’s kisses.

“Just let me sleep for the next week,” Hux grumbles half-heartedly, batting the alpha away irritably when he feels Kylo’s lips pull into a wide smirk against his own. He sighs. “Come on, then.”

Kylo almost bites through his tongue trying to resist the urge to dart forward at the sight that greets him when Hux turns his back. The crowns of two tiny heads peek out from the top of the papoose, twin tufts of dark hair sticking up messily in all directions. He wants to snatch the sling off Hux’s back, to unravel his tiny progeny from where they’re bundled low in their blankets and hold one in each arm – but the omega is still wary enough of him as it is. He can wait. He’ll be patient. He won’t fuck this up again.

Hux leads the alpha into a low, primitive hut a little further into the trees. The contents are simple – a single bunk for Hux, a wide cradle for both twins piled with blankets, a firepit in the centre, the room pleasantly suffused with the omega’s scent; trunks off to the side with water, food and cooking supplies, a vault full of weapons that Hux carefully places his rifle into. There’s a cage underneath the crib that his ysalamir dutifully slithers into, and instead of feeling hurt by this as he expected, Kylo finds himself…relieved. If only he’d had one guarding him as a baby, perhaps Snoke never would have found him.

The omega gingerly sets himself down on the mattress, carefully shrugging the cradleboard off his shoulders so as not to jostle the babies, while the alpha hovers nervously beside him. He lays the papoose down gently, undoing the fastenings with swift, practiced hands, until, blanket by blanket, his- no, _their_ pups are laid out on the bed, and Kylo chokes on a gasp as he gets his first real look at the girls, lying there helplessly on the mattress.

Hux snaps his head up at the noise, defensive and suspicious, but- ”Kylo…are you _crying_?” he asks disbelievingly, and funny, Hux thinks, how a year ago he would have teased the alpha mercilessly for it. Perhaps he will in future, but for now…

“ _Yes_ ,” Kylo sniffles petulantly, rubbing at his eyes. “Hux, I- fuck, they’re beautiful, they’re-”

“I know,” the smaller man says, a little smug, and for the first time since Kylo left he sees the omega smile softly, pride rippling out from his mind. He can’t help but dip down to press another messy kiss to red hair.

“Can I…?”

Hux nods, and Kylo drops down heavily to his knees next to the omega. _Mine_ , the alpha thinks reverently, _my daughters_ , _ours, we made these_ , and as if they might break he reaches out to smooth just the tips of his fingers along the soft, dark hair of their heads.

“Look at you,” Kylo breathes, “look how perfect you are, look how well your mother did.” They seem to curl together instinctively, seeking out their other half, and he can _feel_ it already, the way the force flows, gently looping through their bodies; he leans down to scent them, smell already somehow familiar as they squirm in their sleep against his nose. They have his ears and hair, he thinks, but the beginnings of Hux’s nose and rosy mouth. “They’re so- _small_ ,” Kylo says with awe. He reaches out a single finger, placing it against a tiny palm – even tinier fingers curl reflexively around the digit in an unexpectedly firm grip. With his free hand he does the same to the other baby, delighting in the twin’s equally strong grasp.

Hux snorts next to his mate. “Yeah, well, they sure didn’t feel small when they were coming out of me,” he grumbles, but when Kylo looks at him, the omega has a peaceful smile on his face, looking down adoringly at their daughters.

Kylo moves his hands to cup Hux’s face between his palms. “They’re beautiful,” he murmurs again, pressing a firm kiss to the omega’s forehead. “My omega, my beautiful omega, you did so well, so clever,” he whispers, peppering Hux with kisses, “thank you, thank you, thank you…” The smaller man makes a small, broken noise in his throat, before burying himself in the crook of Kylo’s neck and trembling, sucking in deep, gasping breaths of the alpha’s scent.

“You fucking asshole,” Hux whispers, muffled against Kylo’s shoulder, “how am I supposed to chase you away now?”

“You can’t,” Kylo laughs lightly against Hux’s hair, tugging the redhead into his lap, “you’re never getting rid of me.” He drags his teeth suggestively over the omega’s neck, lowering his voice to a growl. “I’m going to stick around, you’re going to have another heat, I’m going to mark you, and we’re gonna be the best goddamn parents in the galaxy.”

Hux chokes on surprised laughter, shivering pleasantly at the scrape of teeth. “You’re going to have to wait a few months for bonding me, I’m afraid,” he mumbles apologetically. “My body’s still shot to hell from pushing out your hellspawn… _small_ my aching ass, those two are going to be as tall as Phasma.”

“And what did you decide to name my hellspawn, exactly?” Kylo asks playfully, nudging Hux’s head up to look him in the eye again.

The omega shifts uncomfortably and looks to the side.

Kylo frowns. “You…did name them, didn’t you? It’s been a month…”

Hux buries his face in his hands. “I named the ysalamir _Lump_ , for fuck’s sake,” he moans miserably. “Nothing sounded right!”

“’Lump’,” Kylo repeats incredulously, sparing the lizard a commiserating glance where it sleeps under the crib still. “That’s it, I’m officially vetoing your naming rights.” He turns his attention back to the twins; even now, he can’t quite believe they’re real. “Which one is the oldest?”

Hux blinks up at him with confusion, before pointing to the baby on the left without hesitation. “That one. She smells a little more like you.”

Kylo beams down at her. “Amidala,” he says quietly, before turning to her twin. “And Jamillia.”

“Your grandmothers?” Hux asks, turning the names over in his head. He tugs at the baggy socks of Jamillia’s onesie absently as he considers.

“Queens of Naboo,” Kylo corrects. “Amidala was my grandmother’s court name. I _am_ technically a prince, you know; seems fitting to name them after royalty, don’t you think?”

Hux looks up at his alpha and smiles, grateful and soft and genuine, and in that moment, Kylo wants nothing more than a brood with this omega to name after the entire royal line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, the mental image of fierce mama Hux with a baby strapped to his back and a rifle in his hands is actually what kickstarted this whole fic. Next: the epilogue!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is maybe the most sickeningly sweet thing I’ve ever written in my life…you guys wanted a happy ending, you sure got it!!

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Hux moans – not entirely the good kind of moan, sadly. Nearing the end of his heat, the omega is writhing on the bed, exhausted and sweaty, aching and dripping with slick. “We’re finding heat suppressants,” he groans, hips twitching against the mattress, “there’s nothing for it, Kylo, I can’t keep – _ah!_ – not with the twins, too, it’s too much.”

“But you look so _good_ like this,” Kylo murmurs against his mate’s overheated skin, lips tracing down Hux’s spine. He’s let his facial hair grow out, lately, the tickle of his beard making the redhead shiver. But he sighs, knowing the omega has a point; he’s exhausted too, after three days of trying to care for both his one year olds _and_ Hux. Having MD-W7 around to feed and change them helps a little, but…“I _suppose_ I can wait until they’re a bit older to have you in heat again,” he allows grudgingly.

Hux huffs a laugh, peering over his shoulder at the alpha with half-lidded eyes. “We fuck _all_ the time, Kylo, it’s not the end of our sex life.” He twists onto his back, head tipped to one side to seductively reveal his bond-bite. It’s his second heat since Amidala and Jamillia were born; Kylo spent almost half of the first with his teeth locked around Hux’s neck, possessive and rough, insistent on making sure his claim to the tiny family stayed permanent. The alpha smiles lazily at the memory, dropping down to nip at the mark on show for him. One more knot, he thinks; one more and Hux’s heat should finally be sated. Kylo drags his teeth down the omega’s torso lightly, stopping to trace stretch marks with his tongue.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Hux whines, squirming away, “you know I hate them.”

“I love them,” Kylo retorts, and he does; the omega was always slim, and though his stomach is as admirably flat, smooth and soft as it’s ever been, carrying the twins has left its mark. It fills the alpha with a bizarre sense of pride, seeing the physical evidence of his litter branded on the pale skin under his lips. “I love you.” Hux doesn’t get a chance to reply; Kylo’s tongue dips lower, tracing down the crease of his bony hips and down to just behind his balls, and the omega keens. Kylo’s heard Hux howling the words enough over the last three days to last him a while yet. Thank the force he thought to soundproof their bedroom this time.

“C’mon, stop _teasing_ , alpha,” Hux pants as Kylo’s head moves lower still, lapping lazily at the slick smeared between his thighs. “One more time, please, Kylo, please, gently…”

“And here I thought you liked it rough,” Kylo smirks, but he takes pity on his exhausted lover, pushing Hux’s thighs apart and settling his own body weight down onto the omega – he knows from experience by now just how much Hux loves being pinned down and fucked.

“We’ve been doing this for days, you bastard, I’m tired and sore and- _anh_!” He sighs with relief as Kylo’s cock nudges slowly back inside of him, slick and easy, the alpha shushing him gently. Kylo knows what he needs, more than happy to cover Hux’s mouth with his own, tongue lazily prying the omega’s lips apart as he rolls his hips achingly slow. The omega arches his back up when Kylo bottoms out, allowing the alpha to slip one arm underneath to cradle him, the other cupping Hux’s head.  

“So beautiful like this,” Kylo murmurs, thrusting slow and shallow, just the barest twitch of his hips, “want to see you full of my pups again, fill you up and breed you, all mine, mine…” Hux’s head falls back against the pillows, the pale expanse of his throat bared for Kylo to suck and lick and nip.

“Ff-ffuuck, Ky…Kylo…please…please,” Hux gasps; he’s not even sure what he’s begging for, at this point – just this, forever, always, safe and protected in his mate’s arms, his own legs locked around the small of Kylo’s back while he clings desperately to the alpha’s shoulders. Kylo bows his spine, shifting his hips to pick up the pace, angle just enough to _-_ “ _Yes_ , there, there,” Hux groans, the head of the alpha’s cock dragging just right. They so rarely have the time to make love like this, slow and languid, no hurry at all, more often squeezing in quick fucks over the cockpit console or up against the refresher walls.

“See? Aren’t you glad you let me stick around?” Kylo smiles down at him, laughing when the omega finds it in himself to roll his eyes. The alpha sighs as he fucks into his lover lazily, content with the way Hux is trapped underneath him, the heavy, boneless weight of his legs keeping Kylo in place, the pretty little hiccups and gasps that slip unbidden from kiss-bruised lips, the sweet clench of Hux’s hole around him. He sucks an appreciative kiss just under the omega’s jaw. For just a moment, Hux lets fantasy get the better of him, forgets the hell he went through for the twins – imagines Kylo breeding him again, pleasing his alpha with another addition to the family; his lover seems to hear the thought, a growl rumbling through his wide chest in response.

Too soon, Kylo feels his knot begin to swell, already deep enough in Hux to tie them together. The stretch of it has the omega coming with a soundless cry, eyes squeezed shut and lips between his teeth, and Kylo finds himself pulled along towards his own orgasm, cock pulsing cum deep into his mate’s shivering hole. The omega melts with satisfaction, finally, _finally_ sated.

“There,” Kylo hums quietly against the omega’s cooling skin, “all done.”

Hux nudges gratefully at the alpha’s shaggy hair with his nose. “Love you,” he mumbles shyly, tugging Kylo down to rest his weight on top of him as they wait for the knot to recede.

 

*

 

When Hux gets out of the shower, he finds Kylo wandering about in just his underwear, a twin in each arm. He’s making Wookie noises in between blowing raspberries on their stomachs, something that never fails to have his daughters in peals of laughter. They shriek delightedly at their sire, reaching for his face with their tiny hands.

Somehow, Hux can’t quite reconcile the sight before him with the Knight that used to make his life a living hell on the Finalizer.

“You’re meant to be putting them to bed, not getting them worked up again,” Hux scolds him fondly, leaning against the doorframe to the twins’ bedroom.

“I’m telling them in great detail what I did to you over the last three days in Shyriiwook,” Kylo grins deviously, easily lifting his daughters over his head, one in each hand. Hux sincerely hopes he’s using the force to help keep them balanced there. “I’m trying to remember what ‘plow’ is in Wookie, I don’t think Chewie ever taught me that one.”

“You better not be,” the omega sputters indignantly.

“Fine, fine,” Kylo sighs dramatically, lowering his girls back into his arms. “C’mon, little ladies, Mommy says it’s bed time.”

Hux rolls his eyes. He’d lost the war of ‘who gets to be called Daddy’ for good a month ago, when Dala had reached for him with a garbled “Ommy!” Kylo had looked up in alarm, a profoundly guilty expression on his face, but Hux had just sighed very deeply and said “Well, I can hardly correct my child’s first word, can I?”

The omega steps forward to take Jamillia, pressing a kiss to her clammy cheeks before laying the wriggling toddler down in their shared crib. Amidala reaches out for her twin with a frustrated grunt, entirely uninterested in the kiss Kylo gives her. She whinges until he sets her down too, their favourite stormtrooper plushy between them.

“There,” Hux soothes. He clicks his fingers, and Lump comes dutifully waddling out from under a pile of building blocks. “You too, in your cage you go. See? At least someone goes to bed when I tell them to,” he says approvingly, as the lizard obediently curls into its cage under the crib to keep any would-be Snokes away.  

Kylo beams at his mate once they’re out of the babyroom, lights off, reaching for the omega’s hand-

_He’s feeding toddlers. They’re not Dala and Milli; the two girls in front of him look the same age as each other, babbling incoherently around messy mouthfuls of protein mush, but they’re not identical – one has red, fuzzy hair, freckles that curl down the side of her face and over her chubby arms, the other dark tufts like Kylo but the first of their daughters to inherit Hux’s cold, blue eyes-_

“ _Kylo_!” Hux snaps, breaking the alpha out of the vision. The omega is frowning up at him with panic in his expression, shaking Kylo’s shoulders roughly. “What is it? A vision? The force? What did you- the twins?? Will they be alright?”

Kylo pales as his brain catches up.

“Don’t hurt me…” he says very, very slowly, cringing back, and Hux immediately narrows his eyes with suspicion, “but…I _may_ have…accidentally…knocked you up? With…twins? Again?”

Hux releases Kylo’s shoulders, instead closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, puffing out a furious gust of air through his nostrils. “And _where_ did you get my birth control from, Kylo?” he hisses through his teeth.

“It was a perfectly reputable cantina!” Kylo protests weakly, wincing at how much he sounds like his own father. He tries to shrug placatingly. “…At least this time I’ll be here to help?”

The omega doesn’t hit him, despite looking like he very much wants to, instead marching stiffly towards the cockpit and locking himself in. Kylo breathes out a sigh of relief – Hux will come around, the vision made him sure of it. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t tell his mate about the rest of what he saw, he thinks a little guiltily, or he’d almost certainly be halfway out the airlock. He closes his eyes, willing the vision to-

_Leia is teaching Amidala to braid Jamillia’s hair. She doesn’t have the patience for it like Milli does, and Kylo can’t help but smile a little at the first signs of an incoming tantrum. She is her sire’s daughter, after all. He has his hands full with the toddlers, though, so his mother can deal with it - it’s Neeyutnee and Apailana’s lunch time, and half of their food has made its way onto his shirt._

_He looks up at the sound of their ship’s – their home’s – boarding ramp unfolding with a creak, and Hux steps out with a tired smile, hand loosely curled around his stomach and hair mussed from a much-needed nap._

_Their fifth daughter is on the way._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End! Thank you so much for your enthusiasm for this fic everyone, it's been a ride. 
> 
> (Couple of added notes - I just really liked the idea of Kylo and Hux having a little army of daughters named after Queens, haha. The fifth one would be Soruna, I imagine them reuniting with Leia after a health scare in that third pregnancy, and Kylo panics and rushes the seven of them back to grandma.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bodies, Can't You See? [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10609086) by [Carpe_History](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpe_History/pseuds/Carpe_History), [sual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sual/pseuds/sual)




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